GIFT  OF, 


i 

R 

•> 
R 

i 


SYSTEM 


OF 


CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY 


BY 


HENRY  B.  SMITH,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

U 


EDITED  BY 

WILLIAM  S.  KARR,  D.D. 

Professor  of  Theology  in  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 
FOURTH  EDITION,  REVISED 

WITH  AN   INTRODUCTION   BY 

THOMAS  S.  HASTINGS,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


NEW    YOKE: 
A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  AND  SON, 

1892. 


COPYRIGHT,  1884, 
Bv  ELIZABETH  L.  SMITH. 

COPYRIGHT,  1890, 
BY  ELIZABETH  L.  SMITH. 


PUBLISHERS'  PREFACE  TO  FOURTH  EDITION. 


THIS  volume,  so  ably  edited  by  the  late  PROF.  WM.  S.  KARR, 
D.  D.,  has  taken  its  place  as  a  standard  work  on  theology,  not 
only  among  Presbyterians,  but  in  the  Church  .at  large.  The 
influence  of  its  distinguished  author  is  still  widely  felt,  and  his 
power  as  a  theological  authority  is  evidenced  by  his  writings 
being  quoted  on  loth  sides  in  recent  discussions. 

This  new  edition  of  Prof.  Smith's  Theology  will  be  prefaced 
by  an  introduction  by  his  pupil  and  life-long  friend,  the  REV. 
DR.  THOMAS  S.  HASTINGS,  President  of  Union  Theological  Sem- 
inary. The  Rev.  Henry  Goodwin  Smith  has  kindly  undertaken 
a  revision  of  the  foot-notes,  the  correction  of  some  typographical 
errors  in  the  earlier  editions,  and  the  preparation  of  a  Scriptural 
Index,  not  in  former  editions. 

By  a  special  arrangement  with  Prof.  Smith's  family,  this  new 
edition  will  be  issued  at  the  very  low  price  of  Two  Dollars. 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON. 
April,  1890. 


371540 


INTRODUCTION 


THIS  work  was  prepared  for  the  press  by  the  late  PROF.  WILLIAM 
S.  KARR,  D.  D.,  of  the  Hartford  Theological  Seminary,  by  the  careful 
and  laborious  comparison  of  the  MSS.  of  Dr.  Smith  with  such  notes 
as  could  be  obtained,  and  with  a  stenographic  report  of  the  Lect- 
ures. It  was  a  difficult  task,  for  the  performance  of  which  Dr. 
Karr  deserves  the  hearty  thanks  of  Dr.  Smith's  pupils  and  friends. 

The  power  of  this  distinguished  teacher  is  traditional  in  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  his  former  pupils.  They  with  one  voice  testify 
that  their  teacher  stimulated  and  guided  their  thinking  as  no  other 
professor  has  ever  done.  He  had  a  quiet,  magnetic  power,  which 
reached  and  stirred  all  who  listened  to  the  outpouring  of  his  mar- 
vellous learning  and  followed  those  keen  analyses  and  masterly 
generalizations  which  seemed  so  natural  to  him  as  to  cause  him  no 
effort. 

It  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  take  satisfactory  notes  of  his  Lect- 
ures. One  needed  to  get  every  word;  for  his  style  was  not  the 
mere  dress,  but,  as  Carlyle  would  say,  it  was  "  the  skin  of  Jus 
tfwught."  No  other  words  than  his  own  would  exactly  fit  his 
thought;  and  so,  work  as  intensely  as  we  could,  we  failed  to  secure 
all  we  desired  for  preservation  and  use. 

Professor  Smith  had  never  finished  his  Lectures;  he  was  always 
adding  or  omitting;  trying  new  statements;  presenting  clearer 
views.  No  true  teacher  ever  finishes  his  Lectures  until  he  is  near- 
ing  the  end  of  his  career.  But  the  end  of  Professor  Smith's  career 
came  too  soon  and  too  suddenly  for  him  to  leave  us  the  full  legacy 
of  his  matured  instructions. 

Yet  this  volume  has  a  great  deal  of  Dr.  Smith's  peculiar  power. 


Vi  INTRODUCTION. 

and  will  be  read  with  profound  interest  by  those  who  so  knew  him 
that  they  can  remember  him  in  their  reading  of  the  book. 

In  one  regard  this  system  of  theology  is  unique,  and  so  deserves, 
and  is  likely  to  secure,  increasing  attention.  It  is  the  only  Christo- 
centric  system  which  our  American  scholarship  has  given  us.  This 
method  had  long  been  in  his  mind.  On  his  twenty-first  birthday 
he  wrote  to  a  friend,  (S  My  object  is  to  make  and  harmonize  a  sys- 
tem which  shall  make  Christ  the  central  point  of  all  important  re- 
ligious truth  and  doctrine." 

In  his  Inaugural  Address,  which  produced  a  very  deep  impres- 
sion at  the  time  of  its  delivery  (May  6,  1855),  Dr.  Smith  said:  "  To 
Christ  as  mediator  all  parts  of  theology  equally  refer.  He  is  both 
God  and  man,  and  also  the  Redeemer.  The  logical  antecedents  of 
His  mediation  are,  therefore,  the  doctrine  respecting  God,  the  doc- 
trine respecting  man,  the  Fall  and  consequent  need  of  Redemption, 
as  also  that  Triune  constitution  of  the  Godhead,  which  alone,  so  far 
:is  we  can  conceive,  makes  Redemption  by  an  Incarnation  to  be 
possible.  Thus  we  have  the  first  division  of  the  theological  system, 
the  Antecedents  of  Redemption,  which  is  also  first  in  both  theologi- 
cal and  historical  order.  Its  second  and  central  portion  can  only 
be  found  in  the  Person  and  "Work  of  Christ,  his  one  Person  uniting 
humanity  with  divinity,  in  the  integrity  of  both  natures,  adapting 
Him  to  his  one  superhuman  work,  as  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King, 
making  such  satisfaction  for  sin,  that  God  can  be  just  and  justify 
every  one  that  believeth-  and  this  second  division  of  the  system 
follows  the  first  in  both  the  logical  and  historical  order,  giving  the 
peculiar  office  of  the  Second  Person  of  the  Godhead,  the  Purchase 
of  Redemption,  the  Christology  of  theology,  and  in  like  manner  the 
same  mediatorial  idea  passes  over  into  the  third  and  last  division  of 
the  system,  which  treats,  in  proper  logical  and  historical  order,  of  the 
application  of  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ,  to  the  Individual,  to 
the  Church  and  to  the  History  and  final  Supremacy  of  the  King-dom 
of  God,  both  in  time  and  eternity.' 

This  interesting  and  attractive  outline  Professor  Smith  followed 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

and  filled  out  in  his  teachings,  as  may  be  seen  in  this  volume.  To 
him  "  Christian  theology  is  that  exposition  of  the  Christian  faith,  in 
which  all  its  members  are  referred  to  the  mediatorial  principle  as 
their  centre  of  unity  and  bond  of  cohesion.  To  have  Christ,  to 
have  the  whole  of  Christ,  to  have  a  whole  Christ,  is  the  soul  of 
our  Puritan  theology;  the  rest  is  foundation,  defence  or  scaffold- 
ing." 

As  a  theologian,  Professor  Smith  was  both  conservative  and  pro- 
gressive; conservative  in  order  to  be  truly  progressive;  progressive 
in  order  to  be  truly  conservative.  With  a  thorough  philosophical 
training,  and  a  very  rare  breadth  of  learning,  he  united  a  deep  rev- 
erence for  the  Scriptures  which  was  always  apparent  and  impres- 
sive. He  held  to  the  old  truths  with  tenacity,  but  believed  that 
clearer  and  more  consistent  statements  of  those  truths  may  be 
given,  as  we  know  more  of  the  substance  and  of  the  Spirit  of  the 
Scriptures.  In  an  important  sense  he  believed  in  the  saying  that  '-'A 
statement  of  religion  is  possible  which  makes  all  scepticism  absurd." 
Near  the  end  of  his  life  he  wrote,  cc  What  Eeformed  Theology  has 
got  to  do  is  to  Christologize  predestination  and  decrees,  regenera- 
tion and  sanctification,  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  and  the  whole 
of  Eschatology."  In  his  Inaugural  Address  he  quoted  Ullmann's 
words:  "Not  fixedness  nor  revolution,  but  evolution  and  reform,  is 
the  motto  for  our  times."  He  said,  "The  theologian  is  to  be  c deep 
in  tlie  books  of  God,*  as  the  naturalist  in  the  book  of  nature;  both 
are  to  divest  themselves  of  fancy  and  to  become  interpreters.  The 
Science  of  Nature  has  advanced  apace  because  its  eminent  explorers 
have  studied  that  kingdom  with  an  humble  and  reverential  spirit. 
And  one  of  the  reasons, — is  it  not  so? — why  theology  has  been  less 
fruitful,  is  that  we  study  ethics  and  not  divinity,  our  own  wills,  and 
not  the  will  of  God,  and  expect  in  Psychology  to  find  the  kingdom 
©f  God.  But  the  registry  of  God's  wisdom  is  in  His  own  revelation." 
To  the  writer  it  is  r,  privilege  to  acknowledge  his  debt  of  grati- 
tude to  this  truly  great  teacher;  a  debt  which  has  been  deeply  felt 
for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  which  has  prompted  him  to  say  of- 


INTRODUCTION. 

ten  through  these  years, — "  No  other  teacher  has  so  stimulated  my 
intellectual  and  spiritual  life  as  has  Henry  B.  Smith. " 

One  regrets  that  not  all  the  readers  of  this  volume  can  read  it  in 
the  light  of  the  vivid  memories  of  the  Lecture  Koom  where  Profes- 
sor Smith  wielded  such  a  masterful  influence.  We  are  grateful  for 
this  new  edition  of  his  Theology  and  for  this  opportunity  to  pay  a 
personal  tribute  to  his  revered  memory. 

THOMAS  S.  HASTINGS. 
UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY, 
April  9th,  1890. 


PREFACE  TO  FIKST  EDITION. 


IN  preparing  this  work  use  has  been  made  of  a 
phonographic  report  of  the  larger  part  of  Professor 
Smith's  lectures  as  they  were  given  in  the  year  1857. 
of  several  full  sets  of  notes  taken  by  students  in  other 
years,  of  the  whole  of  Professor  Smith's  sketches  and 
outlines  of  his  lectures  as  left  in  manuscript,  and  of  a 
number  of  his  unpublished  sermons.1  The  result  is  that 
the  following  exhibition  of  his  views  in  theology  is  much 
fuller  than  that  which  he  was  able  to  impart  to  any  one 
class  during  the  years  of  lecturing  to  successive  classes 

The  order  of  topics  given  in  Chap.  YI.  of  The  Intro- 
duction to  Christian  Theology  is  observed  in  this  volume 
with  some  few  deviations.  The  author  did  not  always 
keep  with  strictness  to  the  order  which  he  had  prescribed 
to  himself.  But  all  the  main  features  of  the  system  pre- 
sented in  The  Introduction  are  preserved  here. 

Following  the  two  books  already  published,2  this  vol- 
ume completes  the  author's  statements  on  all  the  chief 
questions  in  theology,  and  as  care  has  been  taken  to 
give  not  only  his  thought  but  his  precise  language  in 

1  Selections  from  the  sermons  are  inserted,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  Second 
Division  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  Third. 

2  The  Apologetics  and  The  Introduction  to  Christian  Theology. 


x  PREFACE. 

all  cases  where  this  was  practicable,  it  is  hoped  thai 
the  work  will  not  be  found  wanting  in  any  of  the  char- 
acteristics which  distinguish  his  productions.  The  foot- 
notes are  made  up  from  materials  found  in  Professoi 
Smith's  papers.  In  a  few  instances  the  editor  has  given 
his  own  impressions  as  to  the  author's  views,  and  has 
added  references  to  his  published  works. 

The  two  sons  of  Professor  Smith  have  rendered  val- 
uable assistance  in  carrying  the  book  through  the  press, 
and  the  Index  has  been  prepared  by  Mrs.  Smith,  who 
has  thus  added  to  her  most  attractive  memoir  of  her 
husband  a  summary  of  his  chief  work. 

W.  S.  K. 

HARTFOBD  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINABT, 
March,  1884. 


CONTENTS. 


DIVISION    FIRST. 
ANTECEDENTS    OF  REDEMPTION. 

PART   I. 
THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  RESPECTING   GOD. 

BOOK    I— THE    DIVINE   NATUKE   AND   ATTRIBUTES. 

CHAP.  I. — THE  DIVINE  NATURE. 

§  1.  Can  God  be  known  ? 3 

§  2.  Can  God  be  defined? 7 

§  3.  The  Mode  in  which  we  gain  our  explicit  Conception  of  the  Deity.  7 

*  4.  Anthropomorphism  and  Anthropopathism 9 

§  5.  Scriptural  Designations  of  the  Divine  Nature       .        .  10 
§  6.  Theological  Definitions  of  the  Divine  Nature       .        .        .         .11 

CHAP.  II. — THE  DIVINE  ATTRIBUTES. 

§  1.  The  Idea  of  the  Divine  Attributes 12 

§2.  Classification  of  the  Attributes 15 

CHAP.  III.— THE  ATTRIBUTES  or  GOD  AS  PURE  ESSENCE  OR  BEING. 

§  1.  Self-existence 16 

§  2.  Unlimited  by  Space  or  Time 17 

§  3.  Eternity  of  God 17 

§  4.  The  Divine  Immensity  and  Omnipresence 20 

§  5.  The  Divine  Spirituality.     The  Divine  Simplicity          ...  21 

§  6.  The  Divine  Unity 21 

CHAP.  IV. — ATTRIBUTES  OF  GOD  AS  THE  SUPREME  REASON  AND  UNDERSTANDING. 

§  1.  Proof  that  God  is  the  most  perfect  Intelligence    ....  23 

§  2.  Definition  of  Omniscience .        .23 

§  3.  The  Objects  of  the  Divine  Knowledge 24 

§  4.  Of  Scientia  Media 25 

§  5.  The  Divine  Prescience  or  Foreknowledge 26 

§  6.  The  Divine  Reason 28 

CHAP.  V. — ATTRIBUTES  OP  THE  DIVINE  WILL. 

§  1.  Idea  of  the  Divine  Will 29 

§  2.  The  Distinction  of  the  Divine  Will  as  to  its'  Objects    ...  30 
§  3.  Other  Distinctions  as  to  the  Mode  of  Manifestation  of  the  Di- 
vine Will 31 

CHAP.  VI. — THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  GOD 32 

CHAP.  VII.— THE  DIVINE  HOLINESS                                            ...        r  34 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

CJIAP  VIIL—  THE  DIVINE  LOVE. 

§  1.  Definitions  of  Divine  Love   ....  ...       37 

|  2.  Proofs  of  the  Divine  Love 37 

.§  3.  Divisions  of  the  Divine  Love  as  to  its  Objects      .         .  .38 

§  4.  Other  Modifications  of  the  Divine  Love        .         ....       38 

§  5.  The  Divine  Benevolence & 

§  6.  Sources  of  Proof  of  the  Divine  Benevolence         ....       40 
§  7.  Objections  to  the  Divine  Benevolence  from  the  Existence  of  Evil      40 

CHAP.  IX.— THE  DIVINE  VERACITY .        .43 

CHAP.  X.— THE  DIVINE  JUSTICE. 

§  1.  General  Idea  of  the  Justice  of  God ,44 

§  2.  Proofs  of  the  Divine  Justice 45 

§  3.  Distinctions  in  respect  to  the  Divine  Justice         .         .         .        .45 
§  4.  Why  does  God  as  a  Moral  Governor  exercise  Punitive  Justice  ?  .       46 

BOOK    II.— THE   TBINITY,    OE   GOD  AS  KNOWN  IN   THE  WORK   OF 
EEDEMPTION. 

Preliminary  Eemarks 48 

CHAP.  I.— THE  MANIFESTED  TRINITY. 

§  1.  That  God  is  One 50 

§  2.  That  the  Father  is  Divine  and  a  Distinct  Person          ...       51 

§3.  That  the  Son  is  Divine  and  a  Distinct  Person  from  the  Father  .       53 

§  4.  Objections  to  the  Proof  of  the  Divinity  of  Christ  on  the  Ground 

of  the  Arian  Hypothesis 63 

§  5.  That  the  Holy  Spirit  is  Divine  and  a  Distinct  Person  from  the 

Father  and  the  Son 65 

§  6.  The  Father,   Son,  and  Spirit,  are  classed  together,  separately 

from  all  other  Beings,  as  Divine 71 

§  7.  Eesult  of  the  Biblical  Evidence  in  respect  to  the  Divinity  of  the 

Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 72 

CBAP.  II. — THE  ESSENTIAL  TRINITY. 

§  1.  That  the  Distinctions  of  the  Godhead  are  represented  in  the 

Scriptures  as  internal 73 

§  2.  Eemarks  on  Sabellianism 77 

§  3.  That  these  Distinctions  in  the  Godhead  are  appropriately  desig- 
nated as  Personal  Distinctions 79 

§  4.  The  Ecclesiastical  Statements  as  to  the  distinctive  Characteris- 
tics of  the  Persons 80 

§  5.  Is  the  Term  Son  used  in  the  Scriptures  in  reference  to  Christ's 

immanent  Eelation  to  the  Father?  .         .         .    -    .         .        .83 

§  6.  How  are  we  to  conceive  this  Eelation  as  an  internal  one  in  the 

Godhead?  87 


PART   II. 
CHRISTIAN  COSMOLOGY. 

CHA.P.  I. — CBEATOE  AND  CREATION. 

§  1.  The  Scripture  represents  God  as  the  Creator  of  the  World  .         .       92 
§  2.  The  Scripture  represents  the  Son  of  God  as  the  Medium   by 

Whom  the  World  was  brought  into  oeing       ....       92 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

§  3.  God  Created  freely  and  not  by  necessity 92 

§  4.  Creation  is  not  from  any  previously  extant  substance  ...  92 
§  5.  The  Relation  of  God  as  Creator  to  what  He  has  created       .        .  95 
§  6.  The  Scripture  represents  Creation  as  a  plan  and  not  as  a  De- 
velopment           95 

CHAP.  II. — Or  THE  CBEATED  UNIVEBSE  AS  SET  FOETH  IN  SCBIPTUBE    .        .  96 

CHAP.  III.  —  OP  THE  DIFFEKENT   OEDEBS   OF   CBEATED  BEINGS           ...  98 

CHAP.  IV.— THE  PBESEBVATION  OF  CEEATION. 

§  1.  Sources  of  Proof  of  the  Doctrine .        .102 

§  2.  The  Purport  of  the  Doctrine 102 

§  3.  Theory  of  continued  Creation 103 

§  4.  A  Modification  of  the  Theory  of  continued  Creation    .        .        .104 

§  5.  The  Mechanical  Theory  of  Preservation 105 

CHAP.  V. — DIVINE  PEOVJDENCE. 

§  1.  General  Statements  in  respect  to  this  Doctrine    .        .  106 

§  2.  Proof  of  the  Doctrine  of  Providence 108 

§  3.  Distinction  as  to  general  and  particular  Providence     .        .        .110 

§  4.  Modes  of  the  Divine  Providence Ill 

CHAP.  VI.— THE  DECEEES  OF  GOD 114 

§  1.  Preliminary  Statements 115 

§  2.  Of  the  Terms  used  to  denote  the  Doctrine 117 

§  3.  Characteristics  of  the  Divine  Decree  or  Decrees  .        .        .        .117 

§  4.  Proof  of  the  Doctrine  of  Decrees 120 

§  5.  Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Divine  Decrees        .        .        »  122 

CHAP.  VII.— THE  END  OF  GOD  IN  CEEATION 126 

§  1.  Meaning  and  Statement  of  the  Question 127 

§  2.  Conditions  of  the  Solution  of  the  Problem— if  possible        .        .  129 

§  3.  Statement  of  the  Theories 130 

§  4.  The  Scriptural  Argument 131 

§  5.  The  Supreme  End  of  Creation  is  the  Declarative  Glory  of  God  .  132 

§  6.  Arguments  in  Favor  of  this  Position 136 

§  7.  Consideration  of  Objections 138 

§  8.  The  Happiness  Theory 140 

§  9.  The  Connection  between  the  View  of  the  End  of  God  in  Crea- 
tion and  the  Theory  of  the  Nature  of  Virtue  ....  142 
§  10.  Some  historical  Statements  as  to  Theories  of  God's  End  in 

Creation 143 

CHAP.  VEIL—  THE  THEODICY.    THE  QUESTION  OF  THE  BEST  SYSTEM   .        .  146 

§  1.  Is  Sin  the  necessary  Means  of  the  greatest  Good?        .                .  147 

§  2.  Does  the  Nature  of  Free  Agency  account  for  Sin?       .        .        .  149 

§  3.  We  cannot  State  all  the  Reasons  for  the  Permission  of  Sin  .  153 


PART  III.  . 

CHRISTIAN  ANTHROPOLOGY.     THE  DOCTRINE  RE- 
SPECTING  MAN. 

CHAP.  L— WHAT  is  MAN  AS  A  MOBAL  BEING? 161 

§  1.  Of  Man  in  his  most  General  Relations 161 

§  2.  What  constitutes  the  Individuality  of  each  Man?        .        .        .163 
§  3.  Of  the  Union  of  Body  and  Soul  in  Man        .....     169 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

§  4.  Of  the  Origin  of  Souls  (after  the  Creation  of  the  first  Soul)  .         .  166 

§  5.  OfPersonality 170 

§  6.  The  primary  Facts  involved  in  all  Personal  Agency    .        .         .  170 

§  7.  The  Powers  and  Faculties  of  the  Soul 173 

§  8.  Of  the  original  Tendencies  of  Man's  Soul 176 

§  9.  Of  Conscience 178 

§  10.  Of  Man's  highest  Spiritual  Capacities 190 

CHAP.  II. — WHAT  is  THE  LAW  OF  GOD:  WHAT  DOES  IT  REQUIRE?         .        .  191 

§  1.  Some  general  Statements  as  to  the  Characteristics  of  the  Law     .  11-2 

§  2.  The  two  fundamental  Objects  or  Ends  of  the  Law  of  God  .        .  194 

CHAP.  III.— THE  HIGHEST  GOOD 195 

CHAP.  IV.— THE  FORMAL  THEORIES  OF  THE  NATURE  OF  VIRTUE. 

§  1.  Virtue  is  acting  according  to  the  Fitness  of  Things      .         .         .  198 

§  2.  Virtue  is  that  which  promotes  the  great  End  of  our  Being  .         .  199 

§  3.  Virtue  is  Acting  in  conformity  with  the  Relations  of  Things       .  199 

§  4.  Acting  in  conformity  to  the  Will  of  God 200 

§  5.  Kant's  Theory 203 

§  6.  Dr.  Hickok's  Theory 203 

CHAP.  V.— THE  HAPPINESS  THEORIES 205 

§  1.  The  Selfish  Scheme.     The  Ethics  of  Paley 206 

§  2.  Virtue  consists  in  the  Tendency  to  the  greatest  Happiness.        .  207 

§  3.  Subjective  Happiness  or  Self-Love  Scheme 210 

§  4.  General  Remarks  on  all  the  Happiness  Theories  .        .        .         .213 

CHAP.  VI.— THE  HOLT  LOVE  THEORIES 214 

CHAP.  VII. — SOME  HINTS  AS  TO  A  THEORY  OF  THE  NATURE  OF  VIRTUE. 

§  1.  Preliminary  Statements.        .        . 218 

§  2.  The  Scriptural  View  of  the  Nature  of  True  Virtue       .        .        .220 

§  3.  Statement  of  the  Principle  of  True  Virtue  in  the  abstract    .        .  222 

§  4,  Arguments  for  the  Definition 225 

§  5.  Some  Objections  to  the  Theory .227 

§  6.  Statement  of  the  general  Principle  of  all  Virtue  in  the  concrete  .  229 

CHAP.  VIII.— OF  MAN'S  PERSONAL  RELATIONS  TO  THE  LAW  OF  GOD    .        .  232 

CHAP.  IX.— OF  THE  SEAT  OF  MORAL  CHARACTER.    THE  WILL      .        .        .  236 

§  1.  Of  the  Idea  of  the  Will 237 

§  2.  Of  the  Power  of  the  Will 238 

§  3.  Of  Self-Determination 239 

§  4.  Modes  of  the  Will's  Action 240 

§  5.  Of  the  Liberty  or  Freedom  of  the  Will 242 

§  6.  Of  the  Will  and  Motives 245 

CHAP.  X.— OF  LIBERTY  AND  NECESSITY 250 

CHAP.  XI. — OF  THE  PRIMEVAL  MORAL  STATE  OF  MAN 252 

§  1.  The  Scriptures  teach  that  there  was  a  primitive  State  of  Innocence  253 
§  2.  This  original  State  is  described  in  general  Terms  as  the  Divine 

Image  in  Man  ...                 253 

§  3.  Yet  this  primitive  State  was  not  one  of  confirmed  Holiness  but 

mutable    .                 255 

§  4.  On  the  different  Interpretations  of  the  "  Divine  Image  "     .        .  255 
CHAP.  XII.— THE  DESTINATION  OF  MAN  IF  HE  HAD  CONTINUED  IN  OBEDIENCE. 

THE  COVENANT  OF  LIFE  OR  01  WORKS 258 


CONTENTS. 


PART    IV. 

CHRISTIAN  HAMARTOLOGY.      THE   DOCTRINE 
RESPECTING   SIN. 

CHAP.  I. — THE  FALL  HISTOKICALLY  VIEWED. 

§  1.  The  Temptation.     Is  it  Historical  ? 2GC 

§  2.  The  Features  of  the  Temptation 261 

CHAP.  II.— THE  PENALTY.     THE  DEATH  THREATENED  FOB  DISOBEDIENCE     «  264 

§  1.  As  to  Spiritual  Death 265 

§  2.  Temporal  Death 266 

§  3.  Eternal  Death 271 

CHAP.  HI. — THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  FALL  TO  THE  HUMAN  KACE    .        .  273 

§  1.  Sin  as  known  by  Experience.        .......  274 

§  2.  The  universal  Sinfulness  of  Man  as  testified  to  in  Scripture       .  275 
§  3.  This  universal  Depravity  is  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  as  total, 

i.  e.,  as  affecting  the  whole  Man 276 

§  4.  This  depraved  State  is  native  to  Man 277 

CHAP.  IV.— ORIGINAL  SIN 283 

§  1.  General  Statements 286 

§  2.  The  Facts  of  the  Case,  in  respect  to  Original  Sin,  as  given  in 

Scripture 291 

*  3.  The  Facts  of  the  Case  as  to  Original  Sin,  as  argued  from  Experi- 
ence, and  on  other  than  Scriptural  Grounds 297 

CHAT.  V.— THE  COUNTER  KEPRESENTATION  AS  TO  SIN  AND  ITS  PUNISHMENT 

IN  SCRIPTURE  AND  EXPERIENCE 302 

CHAP.  VI. — THE  THEORIES  PROPOSED  FOR  THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM. 

§  1.  The  Theory  of  Immediate  Imputation 304 

§  2.  The  Theory  of  Direct  Divine  Efficiency,  in  the  way  of  a  Constitution  308 

§  3.  The  Hypothesis  of  Physical  Depravity 309 

§  4.  The  Pelagian  and  Unitarian  View 312 

§  5.  The  Hypothesis  of  Pre-existence 313 

CHAP.  VII. — OF  SO-CALLED  MEDIATE  IMPUTATION 314 

CHAP.  VIII. — OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ORIGINAL  SIN      .        .        .  323 

CHAP.  IX.— OF  THE  BONDAGE  OF  SIN,  ITS  POWEB  OVER  THE  HUMAN  WILL  .  326 

§  1.  Preliminary  Definitions 327 

§  2.  The  Power  to  the  Contrary 329 

§  3.  The  positive  Statements  as  to  the  Relation  of  Natural  Ability 

and  Moral  Inability .        .                       331 


Xvi  CONTENTS. 


DIVISION    SECOND. 

THE   REDEMPTION  ITSELF.      THE    PEES  ON 
AND    WORK    OF    CHRIST. 

PART    I. 

OF    THE  INCARNATION  IN  ITS    GENERAL 
NATURE  AND    OBJECTS. 

CHAP.  I. — WHAT  is  PRESUPPOSED  IN  THE  INCARNATION. 

§  1.  Of  the  Incarnation  in  Relation  to  Sin 343 

§  2.  Such  a  Constitution  of  the  Divine  Nature  as  made  an  Incarnation 

possible 359 

CHAP.  II.— THE  INCARNATION  PRIMARILY  FACT  AND  NOT  DOCTRINE        .        .     353 
CHAP.  III.— THE  FACT  OP  THE  INCARNATION  IN  RELATION  TO  MAN'S  MORAL 

WANTS. 
§  1.  It  presents  us  with  the  Life  of  a  perfect  Man  as  a  Model  for 

Imitation,  and  so  meets  Need 354 

§  2.  The  Relation  of  the  Incarnation  to  Human  Wants  is  seen  in  its 
giving  to  Man  the  most  direct  Access  to,  and  Communion 

with,  God 358 

§  3.  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption 300 

CHAP.  IV.— How  FAE  MAY  AN  INCARNATION  BE  SAID  TO  BE  NECESSARY  ON  THE 

PART  OF  GOD? 362 

CHAP.  V. — THE  INCARNATION  IN  HISTORY 369 

CHAP.  YL— OF  THE  INCARNATION  AS  CONNECTED  WITH  THE  WHOLE  OF  THE 

THEOLOGICAL  SYSTEM,  AND  AS  VIEWED  BY  DIFFERENT  PARTIES      .    369 
CHAP.  VII. —OF  THE  INCARNATION  ON  PHILOSOPHICAL  GROUNDS    .        .        .    373 

§  1.  As  to  the  Philosophy  of  Christianity 373 

§  2.  In  the  Incarnation  we  have  the  Means  of  adjusting  the  conflict 

between  Christianity  and  Philosophy 374 

Ckdp.  VIII. — COMPARISON  OF  THE  INCARNATION  WITH  SOME  OTHEB  FACTS  AS 

GIVING  THE   CENTRAL   IDEAS   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN  SYSTEM.  .  .       377 

CHAP.  IX. — OF  THE  INCARNATION  AS  THE  UNFOLDING  OF  THE  POSSIBILITIES 

OF  HUMAN  NATURE.     THE  SECOND  ADAM  ,     379 


PART    II. 

OF  THE  PERSON  OF  THE  MEDIATOR.      THE  SON  OF  GOD 
MANIFEST  IN  THE  FLESH.     THE  GOD-MAN. 

CHAP  I.  ~~THE  SCRIPTURAL   TEACHINGS   RESPECTING   THE   PERSON   OF   THE 

GOD-MAN 3gg 

§  1.  The  general  Impression  of  the  Declarations  of  Scripture  on  this 

Point 386 

§  2.  The  Proof  from  Scripture  of  Christ's  Divinity      ....    337 


CONTENTS.  XV11 

§  3.  The  Miraculous  Conception 389 

§  4.  In  the  Miraculous  Conception  the  Logos  assumed  a  true  and 

complete  Humanity 392 

§  5.  In  the  Scriptures  both  the  Divine  and  Human  Natures  of  Christ 

are  often  brought  under  one  View 393 

§  6.  The  various  Modes  in  which  what  is  said  of  Christ  in  the  Script- 
ures is  to  be  interpreted  in  respect  to  his  Person  and  Natures    393 

§  7.  According  to  the  Scriptures,  Christ  was  one  Person,  and  his  Per- 
sonality was  from  his  Divine  Nature 394 

§  8.  Summary  and  Conclusions  from  Scripture  Testimony  as  to  the 

Two  Natures  and  One  Person 395 

CHAP.  II. — THE  EAELY  HEEETICAL  OPINIONS  AS  TO  THE  PEESON  OP  CHEIST.    396 
CHAP.  III. — LATEB  DOCTEINAL  DIFFEEENCES  BEOUGHT  UP  IN  THE  CONTEO- 

VEESIES   OF   THE  KEFOEMATION 397 

CHAP.  IV. — THE  OBJECTIONS  AND  DIFFICULTIES  UEGED  AGAINST  THE  Doc- 

TEINE  OF  THE   PEESON   OF   CHEIST 399 

CHAP.  V. — THE  ENTIRE  RESULT  AS  TO  THE  PEESON  OF  OUB  LOSD.        .        .     421 


PART   III. 

THE  WORK  OF  THE  MEDIATOR. 

CHAP.  I.— PEELIMINAET  STATEMENTS. 

§  1.  The  General  Object  of  Christ's  Coming 430 

§  2.  Munus  Triplex.     Christ's  Offices  as  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King   .    431 
CHAP.  II.— OF  CHEIST'S  WOEK  AS  THE  ONLY  TEUE  PEIEST.    OF  ATONEMENT 

AND  THE  NECESSITY  FOB  ATONEMENT 437 

CHAP.  III. — OF  THE  LEADING  SCEIPTUEAL  REPBESENTATION  OF  THE  ATONING 

WOEK  OF  CHEIST — THAT  IT  is  A  SACEIFICE 442 

§  1.  The  System  of  Sacrifices  prevalent  in  the  Pagan  World        .        .    443 
§  2.  In  the  Old  Testament  we  find  the  same  essential  Elements  as  in 

the  heathen  Sacrifices 445 

§  3.  Another  Argument  for  the  same  Position  is  derived  from  the 

Old  Testament  Prophecies  of  Christ 447 

§  4.  The  New  Testament  Descriptions  of  the  Sufferings  and  Death  of 
Christ  repeat  the  same  Ideas,  give  us  in  more  strict  Form 

of  Assertion  the  same  Elements ,     448 

§  5.  Consideration  of  Objections i53 

CHAP.  IV.— ANALYSIS  OF  THE  SCEIPTUBAL  STATEMENTS  AS  TO  CHEIST'S  SUF- 

FEEINGS  AND   DEATH 461 

CHAP.  V. — THE  THEOEY  OF  THE  ATONEMENT  .        .        .        .        •        .  464 

§  1.  Theories  which  define  the  Atonement  ultimately  by  its  Influence 

on  Man,  in  bringing  to  a  New  Life 464 

§  2.  Theories  which  put  the  Essence  of  the  Atonement  in  Satisfaction 

to  Distributive  Justice 466 

§  3.  Theories  which  assert  that  the  Atonement  consists  in  the  Satis- 
faction of  General  Justice 469 

§  4.  The  Atonement,  while  it  indirectly  satisfies  Distributive  Justice, 
does  not  consist  in  this:  it  consists  in  satisfying  the  demands 
of  Public  Justice 470 


XVlii  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  VI. — THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

§  1.  Statement  of  the  Question .    478 

§  2.  Proof  of  General  Atonement 479 

§  3.  Objections  to  General  Atonement 480 

CHAP  VII.— THE  INTERCESSION  OF  CHRIST     .        .        .  •        •        .481 


DIVISION   THIRD. 
THE   KINGDOM   OF   REDEMPTION. 

iNinODUCTORY   REMARKS 491 

PART  I. 

THE  UNION  BETWEEN  CHRIST  AND   THE  INDIVIDUAL 
BELIEVER,  AS  EFFECTED  BY  THE  HO^Y  SPIRIT. 

BOOK    I.—  PREDESTINATION,    ELECTION,    THE    EFFECTUAL    CALL. 

CHAP.  I.— GENERAL  OBSERVATIONS 502 

CHAP.  II. — ELECTION  AND  REPROBATION. 

§  1.  Statement  of  the  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  Election          .        .        .605 

§  2.  Reprobation •  508 

§  3.  Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  Predestination        ....  509 

CHAP,  m.— THE  GOSPEL  CALL. 

§  1.  Of  the  External  Call       .........  515 

§  2.  The  Internal  Call 516 

§  3.  Under  this  General  Statement,  some  Questions  and  Difficulties 

are  raised 516 

BOOK    II.— OF    JUSTIFICATION. 

CHAP.  I.— PBF.TJTVTTNARY  CONSIDERATIONS 522 

CHAP.  II.— OF  THE  TERM  AND  IDEA:  JUSTIFY—  JUSTIFICATION;  THE  GENERAL 

AND  SCRIPTURAL  SENSE 526 

CHAP.  III. — JUSTIFICATION  INVOLVES  A  RIGHTEOUSNESS  AS  ITS  GROUND       .        .  528 

CHAP.  IV.— PERSONAL  RIGHTEOUSNESS 528 

CHAP.  V.— THE  GROUND  OF  JUSTIFICATION 529 

§  1.  Statements  of  Scripture  as  to  the  Ground  of  Justification    .         .  530 
§  2.  How  Christ  can  be  the  Ground  of  our  Justification      ...         .  531 
§  3.  In  what  Way  does  what  Christ  has  done  avail  to  the  Believer 
through  this  Union,  for  his  Justification as  a  Right- 
eousness?            538 

CHAP.  VI. — THE  INSTRUMENTAL  CAUSE  OF  JUSTIFICATION. 

§  1.  Faith,  and  Faith  alone 539 

§  2.  The  Idea  of  Faith  . •         ,540 

^.  3.  Some  questions  in  regard  to  Faith         .         .         .  .         -541 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

§  4.  Is  Man  responsible  for  his  Belief—  i.  e.,  for  his  Unbelief?    .        .  543 
§  5.  Why  is  the  High  Office  assigned  to  Faith  of  being  the  Instru- 
mental Cause  of  Justification  ? 544 

CHAP.  VIE. — THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  THE  ROMAN  CATHOUC  AND  PROTESTANT 

VIEWS  OF  JUSTIFICATION •  54ft 

CHAP.  Vin.  —HISTORICAL  STATEMENTS  RESPECTING  THE  DIFFEBENT  THEORIES  OF 

JUSTIFICATION 548 

CHAI.  IX.— OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  JUSTIFICATION      ...  551 

BOOK    IIL-REGENERATION   AND    REPENTANCE. 
CHAP.  I.— INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

§  1.  The  Doctrine  as  held  in  some  of  the  different  Systems        .        .  553 

§  2.  Of  the  Terms  employed 557 

§  3.  Connection  of  the  Doctrine  of  Regeneration  with  other  Truths  .  559 

CHAP.  II. — THE  NECESSITY  OF  REGENERATION ,  560 

CHAP.  in. — THE  SUBJECTIVE  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  REGENERATION      .        .        .  560 

CHAP.  IV.— THE  AUTHOR  OF  REGENERATION 563 

CHAP.  V.— How  DOES  THE  SPHOT  REGENERATE  THE  SOUL?         ....  564 
CHAP,  VI. — THE  MEANS  OF  REGENERATION. 

§  1.  External  Providential  Means 566 

§  2.  Acts  of  the  Sinner  as  among  the  Means 566 

§  3.  Of  the  Truth  as  a  means  of  Regeneration 568 

CHAP.  VII.— THE  EXHORTATION:  MAKE  TO  YOURSELF  A  NEW  HEART.        .        .  569 

CHAP.  VHI.— THE  CONSCIOUS  PROCESSES  OF  THE  SOUL  IN  REGENERATION  .        .  570 

CHAP.  IX.— REPENTANCE 572 

§  1.  Some  general  Statements  of  the  Protestant  View  .        .         .         .  573 

§  2.  Repentance  should  be  immediate 574 

§  3.  Some  special  Works  and  Signs  of  Repentance      ....  574 

BOOK    IV.— SANCTIFICATION    AND    PERFECTION. 

CHAP.  I.— SANCTIFICATION. 

§  1.  The  nature  of  Sanctification  according  to  the  Scriptures      .        .  575 
§  2.  The  Difference  between  Justification,  Regeneration,  and  Sancti- 
fication       576 

§  3.  Of  Good  Works  and  Sanctification 576 

§  4.  The  Means  of  Sanctification 577 

CHAP.  II. — PERFECTIONISM 579 

§  1.  The  older  Theories 580 

§  2.  The  modern  View  of  Perfectionism 581 

("HAP.  m.— PERSEVERANCE  OF  THE  SAINTS §85 

§  1.  Arguments  in  favor  of  the  Doctrine 586 

§  2.  Explanations  of  the  Doctrine 586 

§  3.  Objections  to  the  Doctrine 587 


PART    II. 
THE   UNION  BETWEEN  CHRIST  AND   HIS   CHURCH. 

§  1.  Of  the  fundamental  and  germinant  Idea  of  the  Church  of  the 

Lord  Jesus  Christ ...  590 

§  2.  Of  the  Nature  of  the  Church  as  seen  in  the  Light  of  this  radical 

and  central  Idea 59] 


XX  CONTENTS. 


PART    III. 

THE  CONSUMMATION  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION 
IN  TIME  AND  ETERNITY.      THE  ESCHATOLOGY. 

CHAP.  I. — OP  DEATH  AND  IMMOKTALITY. 

§  1.  Death 698 

§  2.  Of  Immortality 598 

§  3.  Annihilation 600 

§  4.  Objections  to  Immortality 601 

CHAP.  II.— OF  THE  INTERMEDIATE  STATE 602 

§  1.  Historic  Facts  as  to  the  Doctrine 603 

§  2.  PROPOSITION.    There  is  no  sufficient  Scriptural  warrant  for  such 

an  Intermediate  State  as  described 604 

§  3.  Of  Purgatory 606 

§  4.  The  Sleep  of  Souls 606 

CHAP,  m.— THE  SECOND  ADVENT 608 

CHAP.  IV. — RESURRECTION  OF  THE  BODY 610 

CHAP.  V. — THE  LAST  JUDGMENT 612 

CHAP.  VI. — THE  AWARDS  OF  THE  LAST  DAY 613 

§  1.  The  Scriptural  Testimony  as  to  Endless  Punishment  .         .         .  614 
§  2.  Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  Endless  Punishment      .         .         .617 

§  3.  Of  the  Restitution  of  aU  Things 618 

§  4.  Position  and  Relations  of  the  Doctrine  of  Future  Punishment     .  620 

§  6.  The  Award  of  Eternal  Blessedness  to  the  Righteous    .        .        .  620 


DIVISION    FIRST. 
ANTECEDENTS    OF  REDEMPTION. 


PART     I. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE  RESPECTING  GOD. 

BOOK  I.,   THE  DIVINE  NATURE  AND  ATTRIBUTES;  BOOK  //.,    THE  TRINITY.] 


BOOK  I. 

THE  DIVINE  NATURE  AND  ATTRIBUTES. 
CHAPTER    I. 

THE     DIVINE     NATURE. 

IN  Natural  Theology1  we  have  considered  the  Being  of 
God  as  the  infinite,  absolute,  personal  Spirit,  the  ground  and 
cause  of  all  that  exists.  We  are  now  to  consider  more  fully, 
adding  the  Scriptural  proof,  the  Divine  Nature. 

§  1.   Can  God  be  knoivn? 

The  difficulty  on  this  point  as  it  has  been  discussed,  is 
this:  God  is  an  infinite  and  absolute  being;  man,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  a  limited  and  finite  being,  of  course  limited  in  his 
power  of  knowledge.  How  then  can  this  finite  and  limited 
being  know  the  infinite  and  absolute  being?  The  terms  are 
incommensurable.  The  whole  diameter  of  being  lies  between 
the  Creator  and  the  creature.  There  appears  to  be  no  common 
measure.  On  the  other  hand,  if  God  cannot  be  known,  all 
our  idea  of  Him  would  be  simply  equal  to  zero.  It  would  be 
an  abstract  notion  without  any  life.  Consequently,  both  in 
philosophy  and  in  theology,  in  heathenism  and  in  Christian- 
ity, we  have  a  variety  of  speculations  and  statements,  ranging 
from  utter  skepticism  to  the  height  of  faith,  from  the  assertion 
of  the  absolute  impossibility  of  knowledge  to  the  claim  of 
absolute  knowledge. 

1  [See  "Apologetics,"  p.  85,  aud  "Introduction  to  Christian  Theology,"  p.  84.] 


4  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

CLASSIFICATION    OF    THESE    DIFFERENT    POSITIONS. 

1.  The  philosophical  positions.     These  are  chiefly  four: — 
(a.)  Many  philosophers  and  schools  of  philosophy  take  the 

position  that  God  in  himself  cannot  be  known  at  all.  This 
is  illustrated  in  Plato's  well-known  saying  (Tiraaeus):  "that 
to  find  the  center  and  father  of  all  is  difficult,  and  if  found  it 
is  impossible  to  talk  to  all  about  Him,  for  He  is  the  highest 
good,  having  no  essence  or  existence,  but  ranging  beyond  all 
essence  and  existence  in  his  worth  and  power."  So  Philo 
says:  "God  is  without  any  qualities,  and  we  can  only  ascribe 
to  Him  pure  being  without  attributes."  This  is  everywhere 
the  tone  of  thought  in  the  New  Platonic  School.  Among 
modern  philosophers,  Kant  teaches  that  it  is  impossible  for 
the  intellect,  "the  pure  reason,"  to  know  God.  What  we 
come  at  under  the  guidance  of  reason  is  a  series  of  contradic- 
tions, and  what  we  can  know  about  God  is  attained  not  by 
the  pure,  but  by  the  practical,  reason,  by  the  urgency  of  our 
moral  wants.  Yet  these  very  statements  imply  some  degree 
of  knowledge  * — that  He  is,  if  not  what  He  is. 

(6.)  The  same  position  is  held  by  many  skeptical  philoso- 
phers, with  whom  it  takes  the  form  of  a  denial  of  all  piety 
and  of  all  religion.  The  highest  speculative  minds,  however, 
while  denying  that  God  can  be  properly  "known,"  have  as- 
serted that  our  moral  nature  aspires  to  Him. 

(c.)  God  can  be  known  fully  and  really,  but  only  in  the 
way  of  mystic  contemplation,  not  in  any  proper  knowledge 
through  the  intellect,  but  only  in  a  knowledge  through  feel- 
ing and  devotion.  This  is  an  opinion  of  the  ancient  school 
of  mystics  and  also  of  the  modern  school. 

(d.)  Counter  to  all  these  is  the  position  that  God  can  be 
absolutely  known  by  the  intellect.  This  is  the  pantheistic 
theory,  especially  as  advocated  by  Spinoza  and  Hegel.  We 
can  know  God  purely  and  completely  because  we  are  a  part 
of  Him.  To  have  the  idea  of  Him  is  to  know  Him,  and  we 
could  not  know  Him  unless  we  were  a  part  of  Him. 

2.  Positions  held  in  the  Church.     We  have  the  same  general 

1  [See  "Apologetics, "p.  35.] 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  5 

positions  as  before,  modified  by  the  acceptance  of  the  Christian 
revelation. 

(a.)  There  are  those  who  assert  that  God  can  be  fully 
known  as  we  know  logic  and  mathematics.  Thus  the  Arians, 
in  their  discussions  on  the  Trinity,  claimed  that  God  could  be 
known,  and  so  fully  known  as  to  justify  the  assertion  that  there 
could  not  be  any  pluri-personality  in  Him,  that  He  must  exist 
as  a  single,  individual  mind. 

(b.)  Others  have  asserted  that  God  is  utterly  incompre- 
hensible in  himself,  that  He  is  above  all  names.  No  term 
can  name  Him.  If  we  give  a  name  we  cannot  affix  to  it 
any  definite  conception. 

(c.)  There  is  also  the  position  that  in  this  life  and  with  the 
mere  understanding  God  cannot  be  known,  and  that  He  cannot 
be  known  by  the  wicked,  those  who  are  alienated  from  Him  by 
wicked  works;  but  that  He  may  be  known  so  far  as  He  is  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  and  through  this  revelation  we  may  attain  to 
a  knowledge  of  Him  sufficient  for  our  devotion  and  direction, 
but  not  sufficient  to  fill  up  the  idea  of  God.1 

3.  The  Scriptural  assertions  and  statements.  Exodus  xxxiii. : 
the  scene  in  which  God  appears  to  Moses.  "  Show  me  thy 
glory,"  etc.  The  sense  of  this  gives  a  key  to  the  whole  Scrip- 
tural revelation  of  God.  We  cannot  know  God  face  to  face,  but 
we  can  track  Him  (Exodus  xxxiii.  23)  by  his  revelations. 

He  cannot  be  known  fully  by  man :  Job  xi.  7 ;  Matt.  xi.  25 ; 
Rom.  xi.  34;  1  Tim.  vi.  16.  These  Scriptural  representations 
show  us  that  there  is  in  God  that  which  is  to  the  human  intel- 
lect incomprehensible  and  unfathomable. 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  statements  which  show  that 
some  knowledge  can  be  had  by  man:  Matt.  v.  8;  xi.  27;  1  Cor. 
xiii.  12 ;  Rev.  xxii.  4.  Particularly  do  the  Scriptures  assert  that 
God  is  known  in  Christ,  as  in  John  xvii.  26.  The  word  name 
here,  as  frequently,  stands  for  the  nature  of  God. 


1  See,  in  Cudworth's  "Intel.  Syst.,"  an  admirable  discussion  of  the  atheistic 
positions.  Also,  Berkeley's  "Minute  Philosopher."  "The  Divine  Analogy,' 
by  Bishop  Brown,  an  opponent  of  Berkeley,  inclines  to  the  position  that  we 
must  have  a  revelation  in  ordei1  to  gain  any  knowledge  6f  Gocl. 


6  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

From  these  passages  of  Scripture  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  the  following  results  may  be  obtained — 

(a.)  There  is  a  great  difference  between  the  assertion  that 
we  can  know  God  without  a  revelation  of  Him  and  that  we  can 
know  Him  through  the  illuminating  influence  upon  the  soul  of 
the  Divine  Spirit.  The  finite  cannot  of  itself  attain  to  the  in- 
finite. If  the  finite  and  the  infinite  were  all  and  there  were  no 
communication  between  them,  the  finite  could  not  know  the  in- 
finite. It  is  only  as  the  infinite  being  reveals  himself  that  the 
finite  can  know  the  infinite  at  all.  Otherwise  the  terms  are 
incommensurable. 

(&.)  It  likewise  results  that  God,  in  his  interior  essence, 
cannot  be  known  or  fathomed  by  man.  We  can  know  that 
He  is;  we  cannot  know  fully  what  He  is.  We  can  know 
that  there  must  be  an  infinite  Being,  the  source  and  ground 
of  all  else ;  we  can  know  that  He  must  be  unlimited  in  all  his 
attributes,  but  all  that  is  included  in  his  attributes  we  can- 
not comprehend,  still  less  can  we  grasp  the  essence  on  which 
they  are  based. 

(c.)  It  results,  that  God,  in  his  moral  nature,  cannot  be 
fully  known  by  the  wicked,  because  they  are  opposed  to  Him, 
and  only  the  loving  can  know  love. 

(d.)  It  also  results,  that  God,  in  his  moral  nature,  may  be 
known  by  the  pure  and  holy,  in  proportion  to  their  holiness, 
their  sanctification.  In  his  light  we  see  light ;  in  proportion  as 
we  become  conformed  to  his  image  we  know  Him.  This  posi- 
tion is  strikingly  illustrated  in  Christian  experience  in  all  ages, 
in  an  Augustine  and  Edwards  sometimes  to  such  an  extent  that 
an  enrapturing  sense  and  vision  of  Deity  fills  the  soul. 

(e.)  It  results,  that  God,  in  all  his  fulness  of  wisdom,  love, 
and  grace,  is  known  and  can  be  known  only  through  Christ, 
only  as  we  know  Christ.  He  is  "the  Way"  of  knowledge  as 
well  as  of  redemption.  Through  Him  we  attain  intellectual 
views  of  God  as  well  as  knowledge  of  the  divine  mercy.  So 
that  in  one  sense  we  go  through  Christdogy  to  Theology,  in  the 
way  of  knowing. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  7 

§  2.   Can  God  le  defined? 

If  by  definition  we  mean  a  complete  view,  so  that  the  sub- 
ject can  be  properly  grasped,  so  that  we  can  understand,  and, 
so  to  speak,  exhaust  it,  we  must  all  say  that  we  cannot  give  a 
definition  of  Deity.  In  this  sense  to  define  God  would  be  to 
circumscribe  Hirn.  But  the  word  definition  is  used  in  other 
senses.  There  are  two  chief  senses  in  which  we  may  answer 
the  question  in  the  affirmative.  (1)  An  enumeration  of  the 
essential  attributes  or  predicates  of  any  being,  substance,  or 
thing.  (2)  The  logical  definition,  which  consists  in  giving  the 
genus  and  differentia  of  any  subject.  In  both  these  cases,  \ve 
may  attain  at  least  to  a  proximate  apprehension  of  what  God  is. 
We  can  enumerate  the  essential  attributes  as  in  the  definition 
of  the  Shorter  Catechism.  Or,  we  can  use  the  other  method, 
the  generic  idea  being  spirit,  and  the  differentia  an  enumeration 
of  the  attributes  of  spirit  by  which  He  is  distinguished  from 
other  spiritual  beings.  God  is  a  spirit,  who  is  infinite,  abso- 
lute, and  perfect  in  all  his  attributes.  In  either  of  these  senses 
we  may  be  said  to  give  a  definition  of  Deity. 

§  3.  The  Mode  in  which  ive  gain  our  explicit  Conception  of 
Deity. 

There  are  here  two  chief  modes  found  in  systems  of  theology. 
(1)  It  is  said  that  we  can  form  an  explicit  conception  of  God, 
simply  by  an  analogy  of  human  nature.  (2)  The  general  Cal- 
vinistic  position  is  that  we  form  our  explicit  conception  of  Deity 
fiom  the  analysis  of  the  idea  of  a  perfect  being. 

Some  Statements  on  loth  these  Points. 

1.  Is  it  true  that  all  we  can  know  of  the  divine  nature  is 
from  the  analogy  of  human  nature?1  It  is  sometimes  said  that 
our  whole  idea  of  God  is  derived,  not  from  the  human  spirit, 
but  from  the  analogy  of  the  human  spirit's  operations;  that  we 
take  the  human  mind  which  we  know  by  consciousness,  and 
then  simply  extend  the  powers  and  operations  of  which  we  are 
conscious  and  thus  form  our  idea  of  God;  that  this  is  the  way 
1  This  position  has  been  discussed  and  defended  by  Dr.  E.  Beechor  in  "Bib.  Sac.' 


8  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ill  which  the  idea  of  God  comes  up  in  the  human  mind;  in 
short,  that  God  is  an  infinite  man  in  our  conception  of  Him 
In  regard  to  this, 

(a.)  Man  is  made  in  the  divine  image,  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tural representations,  as  to  his  essence,  his  spiritual  being,  yet 
he  is  put  under  the  limitations  of  time  and  space.  He  is  made 
in  the  divine  image  morally  and  also  in  his  spiritual  nature  and 
capabilities. 

(6.)  We  cannot  help  transferring  to  God  the  essential  attri- 
butes of  spirit  as  we  find  them  in  ourselves.  This  is  a  neces- 
sity of  the  mind  as  soon  as  we  come  to  think  about  God.  We 
know  these  attributes  first  consciously  from  our  own  spirits. 
Yet, 

(c.)  We  do  this  and  can  do  it  and  are  warranted  in  doing  it 
only  under  one  condition,  that  of  conceiving  these  attributes 
in  God  as  perfect,  as  unlimited,  saying  that  they  are  freed  from 
all  possible  limitations  of  time  and  space  by  which  we  are  con- 
fined. It  is  only  on  this  condition  of  extending  every  attri- 
bute to  infinity  that  we  can  make  the  transfer.  Consequently, 
besides  the  analogy  of  a  human  spirit,  we  must  have  the  idea  of  an  in- 
finite and  perfect  being,  in  order  that  we  may  make  the  transfer. 
The  analogy  would  be  false  and  fatal  unless  in  making  it  we 
everywhere  extended  to  infinity  and  absoluteness  every  attri- 
bute. That  we  have  this  idea  of  God  as  "native"  to  us  is 
shown  in  Natural  Theology.1 

(d.)  So  God  is  not  only  like  man  but  He  is  absolutely  differ- 
ent from  man,  because  He  is  an  infinite  and  perfect  Being,  and 
in  forming  our  conception  of  Deity  we  have  to  take  these  char- 
acteristics and  add  them  to  the  analogy. 

2.  The  other  mode  of  gaming  our  explicit  conception  of 
Deity, — the  analysis  of  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Being.  The  older 
theology  says  there  are  three  ways  in  which  we  do  this:  the 
way  of  Negation,  of  Causality,  and  of  Eminence.  By  the  way 
of  Negation  is  meant,  removing  all  imperfection,  denying  to 
God  any  limits  or  imperfections.  By  the  way  of  Causality  is 
meant,  that  what  is  found  in  the  manifestation  or  revelation  in 

.  76.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  9 

the  creation,  we  ascribe  to  God  as  the  cause,  and  we  ascribe  to 
Him  those  attributes  which  are  needed  to  produce  the  effec  ts  in 
creation.  By  the  way  of  Eminence  is  meant,  that  we  ascribe 
to  God  in  an  eminent  sense  whatever  of  excellence  is  in  the 
creature.  He  has  the  necessary  attributes  of  spirit,  but  in  an 
eminent  degree.  Each  of  these  three  ways  is  to  be  applied  to 
all  the  attributes. 

§  4.  Anthropomorphism  and  Anthropopathism.  Ascribing  to 
God  the  form  or  the  passions  of  man. 

This  has  been  done  not  only  by  heathen,  but  by  some  who 
have  had  a  light  of  divine  revelation,  as  the  Alexandrian  Jewa 
in  the  time  of  Philo;  Tertullian,  in  the  reaction  from  the  purely 
ideal  speculations  of  his  time;  Swedenborg,  who  says  that  God 
exists  or  is  in  the  form  of  a  man.  The  tendency  of  all  rude 
nations  is  to  imagine  God  as  having  some  definite  form  and  as 
having  passions  kindred  to  human  infirmity. 

Eemarks. 

1.  All  idolatry  wherever  found  comes  from  the  impulse  to 
make  an  image  of  God  and  worship  Him  as  such.     The  image  is 
first  made  in  the  mind,  and  then  carved  in  wood  or  stone.     The 
idolatry  begins  in  the  soul,  it  is  expressed  externally  and  thus 
we  have  polytheism.     This  is  one  extreme,  that  of  superstition. 
The  image  is  made  and  worshiped  and  does  not  lead  to  any- 
thing beyond. 

2.  The  other  extreme  is  the  thought  of  God  as  wholly  out 
of  relation  with  what  is  human  and  finite,  an  abstract  deity. 
This  is  irreligion.     This  is  the  essence  of  the  Deistic  conception, 
of  God.     He  is  supposed  to  be  so  distant  that  we  cannot  be 
brought  into  any  relation  with  Him.     Any  feeling  in  Him,  it 
is  said,  would  be  an  imperfection.     The  constant  tendency  of 
the  highly  speculative,  cold  intellect  is  to  this  view — a  God 
without  feeling. 

3.  In  the  Christian  system  there  is  an  intermediate  view. 
It  sets  forth  that  man  was  made  in  the  divine  image,  and  hence 


10  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

there  must  be  some  analogy  between  God  and  man,  hence  there 
may  be  symbols,  and  in  our  souls  we  may  find  something  of 
God.1  In  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  we  have  the  contra- 
dictions between  these  two  extremes,  idolatry  and  deism,  solved 
in  a  higher  light.  God  comes  in  the  form  of  man,  and  thus  we 
are  justified  in  attributing  to  Him  human  sympathy  and  love. 
The  Christian  faith  is  thus  intermediate  between  heathenism 
and  deism,  in  the  sense  that  it  exhibits  in  perfection  that  which 
these  have  felt  after,  God's  nearness  to  man  and  his  infinite 
majesty. 

§  5.  Scriptural  designations  of  the  Divine  Nature. 

In  the  Scriptures  we  have  a  great  variety  of  divine  names.' 
They  are  divided  as  essential,  attributive,  and  names  of  the 
modes  in  which  God  works,  (a.)  The  essential  names  are 
Jehovah  and  Elohim.  Jehovah  is  put  in  the  front  rank,  it  was 
to  the  Jew  the  ineffable  name.  The  word  is  from  the  Hebrew 
verb  "to  be,"  it  designates  the  pure  being  of  God.  Elohirn 
has  a  more  general  sense.  The  relation  in  which  these  words 
fetand  to  each  other  has  been  very  much  discussed.  It  appears 
to  be  proved  that  in  the  main  Elohim  is  used  of  God  in  his 
most  general  characteristics  and  relations,  while  Jehovah  sets 
Him  forth  as  the  covenant  God,  the  God  of  his  people,  the  God 
who  manifests  himself.  This  usage  can  undoubtedly  be  traced 
in  many  parts  of  the  Scriptures.  — Another  discussion  was  started 
some  years  ago  in  a  work  entitled  Yah-veh,  which  urges  that 
the  name,  as  restored  to  this,  its  proper  form,  does  not  signify 
the  covenant  Deity  and  the  pure  being  of  God,  but  rather 
"  He  who  is  to  be,"  as  referring  to  the  future  manifestation  of 
Deity  in  the  Pexson  of  Christ. — The  objections  are:  that  even 
if  the  word  have  the  future  form,  it  would  not  necessarily  have 
a  future  sense.  "  Jacob  "  has  the  future  form,  but  it  means,  he 
supplants,  and  not,  he  will  supplant.  Still  further,  there  is  an 

1  Thus  in  the  Old  Testament  we  have  representations  of  God  derived  from 
human  emotions,  as  when  it  is  said,  "  God  was  angry,"  "It  repented  Him  of  what 
He  had  done."     So  too  the  form  of  God  is  represented  as  passing  before  Moses. 

2  See  Hsvernick's  "Introd.  to  Old  Testament,"  and  Hengstenberg's  "Au- 
thenticity." etc. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  11 

mappropriateness  in  representing  God  as  revealing  himself  as 
on^  who  is  to  be,  merely.  The  proper  revelation  in  the  first 
stadium  would  be  that  of  God  himself.  (6.)  The  attributive 
designations  of  God  are  those  which  describe  Him-  by  certain 
attributes,  as  The  Almighty,  etc.  (c.)  Those  which  designate 
Him  in  relation  to  his  works  are  such  as  The  Most  High,  The 
King,  The  Lord  of  Hosts,  The  Father  of  all. 

§  6.   Theological  Definitions  of  the  Divine  Nature. 

The  definition  of  God  in  the  Shorter  Catechism  is  one  of  the 
best,  considered  as  a  definition  from  enumeration  of  the  essential 
attributes.  It  includes  the  attributes  and  the  qualities  of  those 
attributes.  First,  He  is  a  Spirit,  then,  infinite,  eternal,  and  un- 
changeable, and  then  these  attributes  cover  all  the  essential 
qualities  of  being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness, 
and  truth.  The  highest  definition  in  Pagan  antiquity  is  that 
of  Plato:  "  God  is  the  eternal  mind,  the  cause  of  good  in  nature." 
Calvin's  definition,  (and  Luther's,  nearly  the  same):  "God  is  an 
infinite  and  spiritual  essence."  This  is  representative  of  a  class. 
In  the  16th  century  the  Pantheistic  discussion  had  not  sprung 
up.  It  would  do  very  well  then  to  describe  Deity  as  an  infinite 
and  spiritual  essence,  but  it  would  not  do  now.  In  order  to 
save  Theism,  besides  such  abstract  statements,  we  must  intro- 
duce terms  which  include  the  personality  of  God.  Another 
definition  very  orthodox  in  its  time  is  that  of  Wolff:  "  God  is 
a  self-existent  being  in  whom  is  the  ground  of  the  reality  of  the 
world. "  This,  if  given  now,  would  at  once  be  called  pantheis- 
tic. In  most  of  the  modern  definitions  the  personality  is  insisted 
upon.  Hase's  is  a  good  specimen:  "God  is  the  absolute  per- 
sonality who  out  of  free  love  is  the  cause  of  the  universe." 
Hegel's:  "God  is  the  absolute  spirit,"  in  the  mouth  of  a  Chris- 
tain  would  mean,  a  self-conscious  spirit,  but  with  Hegel  it  meant 
a  spirit  without  consciousness  until  it  becomes  conscious  in  the 
reason  and  thoughts  of  mankind. 

A  definition  intended  to  combine  the  different  attributes  and 
to  ward  off  Pantheism:  "God  is  a  Spirit,  absolute,  personal,  and 
holy,  infinite  and  eternal  in  his  being  and  attributes,  the  ground 


12  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

I  and  cause  of  the  universe."  In  this  definition  the  following 
points  may  be  noted:  (1)  Spirit,  which  gives  the  generic  idea, 
in  contrast  with  what  is  material;  (2)  Absolute,  free  from  re- 
strictions, not  dependent  on  anything,  complete  in  himself;  (3) 

I  Personal,  to  emphasize  that  characteristic  as  essential  to  Deity, 
(4)  Holiness,  that  holiness  which  is  the  sum  of  his  moral  perfec- 
tions, is  essential  to  Him;  (5)  Infinite  and  eternal,  i.  e.,  his  being 
and  attributes  are  not  to  be  limited  by  any  restraints  of  time  and 
space;  (6)  The  ground  and  cause  of  the  universe.  The  reason 
of  adding  this  phrase  is  the  fact  that  as  we  know  God  we  know 
Him  in  part  through  the  universe,  ascribing  to  Him  as  the  cause 
\  whatever  is  found  in  the  universe  as  an  effect. 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE     DIVINE    ATTRIBUTES. 

§  1.   The  Idea  of  the  Divine  Attributes. 

In  a  large  sense  an  attribute  may  be  said  to  be  any  concep- 
tion which  is  necessary  to  the  explicit  idea  of  God,  any  distinc- 
tive conception  which  cannot  be  resolved  into  any  other.  We 
start  from  the  position  that  there  is  a  divine  substance,  or  es- 
sence; and  an  attribute,  in  distinction  from  the  substance,  is  any 
necessary  predicate  that  can  be  applied  to  this  essence.  The 
term  attribute  covers  all  the  generic  statements  that  we  can 
make  about  God,  in  respect  both  to  what  He  is  and  to  his  mode 
of  working.  Thus  the  unity  of  God,  though  inhering  in  the 
essence,  is  said  to  be  an  attribute.  God's  spirituality  is  also  said 
to  be  an  attribute,  although  spirituality  belongs  to  his  very  es- 
sence or  nature.  Some  of  the  definitions  of  attribute  found  in 
systems  of  divinity  show  that  it  is  used  in  as  broad  a  sense  as 
this,  e.  </.,  "  Attribute  is  a  quality  by  which  anything  is  distin- 
guished from  any  other  thing;"  "The  attributes  are  the  single 
elements  (momenta)  of  the  idea  of  God  "  (Hahn).  In  other  words 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION  13 

attributes  are  defined  as  the  modes  under  which  we  are  obliged 
to  conceive  of  the  divine  essence,  making  the  attributes  simply 
subjective.  Schleiermacher,  carrying  this  to  the  extreme,  says: 
"The  attributes  are  simply  individual  relations  of  the  divine 
perfections,  which  we  conceive  of  in  the  fluctuations  or  changes 
of  our  pious  feelings."  Hegel  in  common  with  all  pantheists 
says  that  the  attributes  of  God  are  simply  our  subjective  concep- 
tions of  God.  There  is  in  the  divine  nature  nothing  correspond- 
ing to  them.  This  suggests  the  question,  the  most  important  one 
in  respect  to  the  attributes,  whether  there  is  a  real  distinction 
of  the  attributes  in  God  himself  or  whether  the  differences  are 
nominal,  related  merely  to  our  conceptions.  Here  comes  up  the 
old  controversy  between  the  Realists  and  the  Nominalists.  The 
Realist  said  that  in.  the  divine  nature  there  were  proper  distinc- 
tions, and  the  Nominalist  that  these  were  merely  subjective 
names  for  Deity.  In  respect  to  this  question  we  remark : 

1.  The  divine  attributes  do  not  imply  any  real  distinction 
in  God  in  this  sense,  that  God  is  a  being  composed  or  made  up 
of  distinct  attributes.     There  is  no  distinction  in  the  sense  of 
composition  of  parts  to  make  a  whole.    This  can  be  applied  only 
to  a  material  organization. 

2.  What   we   call    the   attributes   expresses    our    necessary 
conceptions  of  God,  our  analysis  of  the  idea  of  God,  of  the  most 
perfect  being,  and  they  are  the  necessary  analysis  of  this  idea. 
This  analysis  may  be  imperfect  owing  to  our  finiteness.    It  may 
include  altogether  too  little;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  a  necessary 
analysis.     We  cannot  do  otherwise  than  make  it.     Otherwise 
the  idea  of  God  is  a  blank.     To  hold  that  the  ideas  exist  merely 
subjectively  in  our  minds  would  annul  the  very  idea  of  a  per- 
sonal  God.     We  cannot  conceive  of  God  except  as  active. 

3.  The  attributes  express  real  distinctions  in  God  so  far  as 
this:  that  no  one  of  them  can  be  resolved  into  any  other,  and 
also  so  far  as  this,  that  all  of  them  cannot  be  resolved  into  one 
idea  or  one  fact  about  God,  except  the  fact  or  idea  that  God 
is  the  most  perfect  being.     Take  the  attributes  of  love  and 
of  omnipotence;  you  cannot  resolve  love  into  power,  or  power 
into  love.     You  cannot  deduce  one  from  the  other.     So  you 


14  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

cannot  resolve  immensity  into  justice  or  derive  justice  from 
immensity. 

4.  The  attributes  describe  in  part  what  is  essential  to  God 
in  pure  being  or  existence,  and  in  part  what  belongs  to  Him  as 
an  active  being.     Yet, 

5.  It  should  ever  be  held  fast  that  all  the  attributes  are  to 
be  taken  simply  as  modes  of  the  being  and  action  of  one  simple, 
perfect,  spiritual  essence.     The  essence  and  attributes  are  not 
separable.     The  attributes  express  the  essence,  the  essence  is 
the  ground  of  the  attributes.     It  is  one  simple  spiritual  essence 
in  these  different  modes. 

6.  The  attributes  of  God  must  differ  from  those  of  man  at 
least  so  far  as  this:  In  man  the  faculties  or  powers  act  imper- 
fectly, owing  to  the  human  finiteness ;  in  God  the  activity  of  all 
the  attributes  must  always  concur,  there  must  be  a  perfect  har- 
mony of  working  of  all  the  attributes.     Schleiermacher  makes 
an  objection  to  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Attributes  on 
this  ground,  that  these  imply  limitation,  and  if  so  they  cannot 
belong  to  God,  and  therefore  cannot  express  anything  real  in 
God.     As  to  this  we  say:  (a.)  What  is  meant  by  the  attributes 
is  this:  certain  modes  of  being  or  activity  of  an  infinite  being. 
But  an  infinite  being  may  be  infinite  in  a  variety  of  modes.    There 
is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  infinitude  which  contradicts  the  idea 
that  it  may  be  in  a  variety  of  modes,  and  express  itself  in  a  va- 
riety of  ways,  and  if  we  say  the  attribute  is  a  simple  mode  of 
being  or  acting,  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  infinitude  which 
prevents  it.     Even  Spinoza  said  that  of  the  infinite  substance 
there  were  two  modes,  thought  and  extension,  and  one  of  his 
propositions  is  that  there  may  be  many  others  even  in  an  in- 
finite variety.    There  may  be  an  infinitude  of  power  and  also  of 
love,  and  one  does  not  limit  the  other,  because  each  of  them  is 
infinite.     (&.)  The  view  of  Schleiermacher  involves  essentially 
the  position  that  an  infinite  substance  cannot  act  under  finite 
modes,  because  it  would  be  limited.     This  however  is  contrary 
even  to  the  pantheistic  theory,  which  claims  that  the  one  infinite 
substance  does  act  or  express  itself  under  finite  modes  and  a 
variety  of  them.     An  infinite  being  need  not  always  act  for  an 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  15 

infinite  object  or  end.  It  may  express  itself  in  the  finite.  Space 
and  time,  for  example,  are  boundless,  but  there  is  also  a  limited 
space  and  a  limited  time,  and  these  do  not  exclude  the  infinitude 
of  space  and  time.  Then  that  which  is  infinite  may  exist  in 
finite  modes;  therefore  it  may  be  true  in  respect  to  God  that  He 
can  act  under  finite  modes,  (c.)  The  position  of  Schleiermacher 
amounts  to  this,  that  in  God  there  cannot  be  any  distinctions  at 
all,  or,  in  other  words,  we  cannot  say  anything  about  God.  In 
respect  to  Him  we  cannot  have  a  subject  and  a  predicate  to- 
gether. God  is  a  mere  It,  blank,  vacancy,  ultimately  zero. 
With  a  similar  statement  Hegel  starts,  viz.,  that  being  and  noth- 
ing are  the  same,  i.  e.,  being  is  wholly  without  distinctions,  so 
that  we  can  say  anything  about  it,  and  therefore  it  is  the  same 
as  nothing. 

Concluding  definition  of  a  divine  attribute :  Any  simple  con- 
ception necessary  to  our  analysis  of  the  idea  of  God,  whether  in 
his  mode  of  being  or  acting. 

§  2.   Classification  of  the  Attributes. 

Various  classifications  have  been  proposed.  One  of  the  most 
current  is  the  distinction  of  the  natural  and  moral  attributes: 
the  natural,  meaning  the  attributes  of  God  in  reference  to  and 
in  contrast  with  nature ;  the  moral,  the  attributes  of  God  as  our 
moral  governor.  (It  is  not  meant,  as  sometimes  interpreted, 
that  the  moral  attributes  are  not  native  to  God.)  Sometimes 
the  distinction  is  into  moral  and  metaphysical  attributes,  the 
term  metaphysical  meaning,  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  physical 
Another  famous  distinction  is,  the  immanent  and  the  transeunt, 
the  former  relating  to  God  as  He  is  in  himself,  internal,  quies- 
cent; the  latter,  as  He  is  revealed  in  nature,  the  attributes  in 
which  his  energies  pass  over  into  the  external  world.  Another 
distinction  is  into  negative  and  positive:  negative,  by  which  cer- 
tain limitations  are  denied;  positive,  by  which  certain  perfec- 
tions are  expressed.  Another:  communicable  and  Incommunicable: 
those  which  can  be  and  those  which  cannot  be  imparted. 

All  these  modes  are  liable  to  the  objection  that  we  have  to 
bring  in  the  same  attributes  under  both  divisions.  Every  attri- 


16  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

bute  can  be  both  negative  and  positive,  every  one  must  be  both 
immanent  and  transeunt,  every  one  must  partake  of  the  quali- 
ties of  natural  and  moral.  Accordingly,  there  have  been  vari- 
ous attempts  to  depart  from  this  merely  formal  mode  and  to 
describe  or  classify  the  attributes  more  from  the  analogy  of 
man;  e.  g.,  Hase  and  Hahn  have  a  fourfold  classification:  attri- 
butes expressive  of  the  divine  essence,  those  pertaining  to  the 
divine  understanding,  to  the  divine  feeling,  the  divine  will. 
Undoubtedly  there  is  a  degree  of  truth  in  this.1 

It  is  proposed  to  consider  the  divine  attributes  here  under 
the  following  general  scheme:  (1)  Of  God,  as  an  infinite  and 
spiritual  essence,  or  as  pure  being,  not  considered  as  in  action ; 
(2)  The  attributes  of  God  as  the  supreme  reason  or  understand- 
ing ;  (3)  The  attributes  of  God  as  moral,  as  holy. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  GOD  AS  PURE  ESSENCE  OR  BEING. 

Strictly  speaking,  perhaps  these  would  not  be  attributes,  but 
they  are  generally  classed  as  such.  They  might  have  been 
considered  under  the  head  of  the  divine  nature,  because  they 
are  different  aspects  of  the  divine  substance. 

§  1.  Self-existence.* 

This  is  expressed  in  barbarous  Latin  as  " aseitas"  and  also 
in  the  phrase  "causa  sui"  "cause  of  himself."  We  could  not 

*  Dr.  Breckinridge  has  a  peculiar  classification,  fivefold:  The  primary,  essen- 
tial, natural,  moral,  and  consummate.  In  this  arrangement  it  is  difficult  to  see 
where  a  distinction  can  be  made  between  the  primary,  the  essential,  and  the 
natural.  What  is  primary  must  be  essential,  what  is  essential  must  be  primary, 
and  what  is  natural  must  be  both  essential  and  primary.  The  consummate  attri- 
butes express  merely  the  harmony  of  the  attributes,  they  are  not  distinct  attributes, 
but  modes  in  which  these  exist:  fulness  of  life,  majesty,  all-sufficiency,  and  omnip- 
otence. Omnipotence  is  certainly  a  primary,  natural,  essential  attribute. 

2  See  Sam.  Clarke's  "  Demonstration  of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God  "  foi 
ui  ingenious  argument  upon  this. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  17 


now  say  this  in  our  sense  of  the  word  "cause,"  which  implies  a 
priority  in  time  of  the  cause  to  the  effect.  But  in  the  old  clas- 
sical sense  it  meant  also  the  ground  of  being,  that  God  has  the 
ground  of  his  being  in  himself.  In  other  words,  God  is  himself 
an  absolute  being,  self-existent  and  complete  in  and  of  himself, 
not  dependent  on  any  other  being.  The  proof  of  this  attribute 
is  not  deduction,  but  an  analysis  of  the  idea  of  being.  When  we 
come  to  reflect  upon  being,  as  in  Clark's  demonstration:  "Some- 
thing is,  something  must  always  have  been,  and  if  something  has 
always  been,  it  must  have  been  self-existent,"  we  find  that  we  are 
employing,  not  demonstration  or  deduction,  but  analysis.  This 
idea  of  self-existence  is  expressed  in  the  word  "Jehovah,"  in 
the  assertion  that  "  the  Father  hath  life  in  himself"  (John  v. 
26),  in  the  declaration  that  God  is  independent  of  all  other 
beings  (Isaiah  xl.);  Ps.  cxiv.  is  also  a  description  of  the  same. 

§  2.    Unlimited  by  Space  or  Time. 

God  is  unconditioned  and  unlimited  by  space  or  time.  This 
is  defining  God  in  contrast  with  the  finite.  The  infinitude  of 
God  has  in  it  two  elements.  We  define  it  negatively  by  deny- 
ing that  the  attributes  of  the  finite  apply  to  it,  and  positively  by 
describing  God's  being  and  modes  of  being.  The  limitations 
of  the  finite  being  comprehended  in  the  two  particulars  of  time 
and  space,  the  infinitude  of  God  may  be  resolved  into  two  points, 
which  are  defined  and  described  as  two  attributes,  eternity  and 
immensity. 

By  the  very  necessity  of  our  thinking  we  are  obliged  to 
conceive  of  all  that  is  finite  under  the  limitations  of  space  and 
time.  We  cannot  define  anything  except  in  reference  to  space 
and  time. 

§  3.   Eternity  of  God. 

1.  The  eternity  is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  necessary 
existence.  It  implies,  on  the  one  hand,  a  negation  of  the  limits 
of  time,  and  positively,  a  mode  of  the  being  of  God  in  relation 
to  time.  One  of  the  old  definitions  of  eternity  is :  the  attribute 
by  which  God  is  freed  from  all  the  successions  of  time  and 


18  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

contains  in  himself  the  ground  or  reason  of  time.  Another 
definition1  is:  God  is  the  eternal  Now.  It  is  paradoxical,  but 
that  heightens  its  force.  He  is  present  in  all  time,  as  though 
all  time  were  to  Him  a  now.  As  far  as  his  knowledge  of  time 
goes,  it  is  as  if  past,  present,  and  future  time  were  before  Him. 
Eternity  has  been  defined  by  the  Scholastics  as  unicum  instans, 
semper  presens  et  subsistens. 

2.  The  popular  definitions.     God  exists  in  the  past,  present, 
and  future,  and  this  is  eternity.     Or,  that  attribute  by  which 
God  neither  begins  nor  ceases  to  be.     The  phrase,  God  existing 
in  past,  present,  and  future,  must  be  understood  with  some  re- 
strictions.    God  cannot  exist  in  time.     If  He  could,  or  did,  He 
would   be   limited   by   time.     The   expression   is   popular,   not 
scientific.     The  Scripture  passages  which  describe  God's  eternity 
are  more  in  the  popular  than  in  the  scientific  sense.     Job  xxxvi. 
26,  "The  number  of  his  years  cannot  be  searched  out;"  2  Pet. 
iii.  8;  Isa.  xli.  4;  Ps.  xc. ;  Eom.  i.  20. 

3.  Of  the  relation  of  Time  and  Eternity  to  each  other.     Time 
is,  properly  speaking,  according  to  the  common  definition,  du- 
ration   measured    by   succession.      The   idea    of   succession    is 
necessary  to  the  time.     It  is  a  continuance  measured  by  dis 
crete  parts.     Eternity,  as  used  in  contrast  with  this,  has  a  two 
fold  sense.     It  is  sometimes  used  as  equivalent  to  the  whole  of 
time,  past,  present,  and  future  time  constituting  eternity;  and 
secondly,  in  the  most  appropriate  and  strict  sense,  it  is  that  which 
cannot  be  measured  by  time,  which  is  not  included  in  time  or 
limited  by  it;  it  is  the  contrast  with  successions  of  time,  and 
God  as  eternal  is  not  in  time,  but,  to  use  the  old  phrase,  is  the 
"  Lord  of  time,"  considered  as  a  series  of  successions.     In  the 
origin  of  our  ideas,  chronologically  the  order  is  time  first,  but 
logically  eternity  is  first.     Time  presupposes  the  eternity.     If  it 
did  not,  we  never  could  come  at  it  through  time,  because  no 
succession  that  we  could  conceive  could  make  up  eternity.     It 
is  the  same   impossibility  as  deducing   the  infinite  from   the 
finite. 

4.  In  the  attribute  of  eternity  is  involved  the  notion  of  im- 

1  Given  by  Boethius. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  19 

mutability  The  two  are  closely  connected  in  the  Scriptures, 
as  respects  immutability  of  being  and  of  the  divine  purposes. 
God's  relations  to  man  change,  his  own  being  never  changes. 

5.  The  metaphysical  difficulty  involved  in  the  doctrine  of 
eternity  as  applied  to  God.     This  arises  from  the  idea  of  putting 
the  successions  of  time  in  the  divine  mind.     If  they  exist  in  God, 
then  they  have  always  existed.     And  as  these  successions  are 
finite,  the  finite  has  always  existed.     This  difficulty  is  to  be  re- 
moved, so  far  as  we  can,  by  the  form  of  statement  that  the  suc- 
cessions of  time  are  not  in  God  but  dependent  on  God.     Time 
as  succession  begins  with  the  created  universe,  when  there  are 
beings  to  whom  the  succession  applies.     The  successions  of  time 
are  not  in   God,  although  they  are  present  to  Him  in  eternal 
knowledge.     Yet  it  is  granted  that  there  is  a  difficulty  here 
which  we  cannot  perfectly  master.1 

6.  Other  points  which  are  raised  as  to  the  attribute  of  eternity. 
(a.)  As  to  the  Scriptural  representation  that  God  repents. 

Hos.  xi.  8;  Ex.  xxxii.  14;  Ps.  cvi.  45.  How  are  these  declara- 
tions of  God's  repentance  reconcilable  with  his  immutability  in 
his  eternity  ?  We  are  to  consider  that  the  changes  here  spoken 
of  are  not  changes  in  Him,  but  in  his  relation  to  men.  He 
repents  and  always  meant  to.  The  purpose  is  immutable.  It 
involves  no  change  in  Him. 

(6.)  A  difficulty  arises  in  connection  with  Christology.  If  Go  I 
is  immutable,  how  could  He  become  incarnate?  The  answe: 
must  be  found  in  the  position  that  in  the  Incarnation  there  it 
not  a  change  in  the  divine  nature,  but  in  the  divine  mode  of 
manifestation.  The  humanity  is  assumed  by  the  divinity.  The 
assumption  does  not  change  the  divinity,  which  remains.  It 
simply  manifests  itself  in  a  human  form.  God  can  reveal 
himself  in  finite  forms,  and  from  eternity  determines  thus  to  do. 

1  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the  Principia,  which  illustrates  Newton'a 
metaphysical  genius:  "  God  is  eternal,  infinite,  omnipotent,  omniscient,  L  e.,  He 
endures  from  eternity  to  eternity  and  is  present  from  the  infinite  to  the  infinite. 
He  is  not  duration  and  space,  but  He  endures  and  is  present;  I  e.,  duration  and 
space  in  their  finite  measures  are  not  God,  although  God  ever  endures  and  is 
everywhere  present,  and  by  existing  always  and  everywhere  He  constitutes,  He 
makes  duration  and  soace." 


20  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  4.   The  Divine  Immensity  and  Omnipresence. 

By  the  divine  immensity  is  meant  the  attribute  of  Gcd  in 
relation  and  in  contrast  with  finite  and  limited  space,  as  eternity 
is  the  attribute  in  relation  to  successions  of  time.  The  attri- 
bute in  relation  to  space  is  expressed  by  two  words,  and  has 
thus  an  advantage  over  the  phraseology  which  expresses  eter- 
nity. The  two  are,  immensity  and  omnipresence.  In  the  attri- 
bute relating  to  successions  in  time,  we  have  no  word  corres- 
ponding to  omnipresence.  The  immensity  of  God  may  be 
thus  defined:  the  attribute  which  expresses  (gives  the  point 
of  view)  that  God  is  not  limited  or  circumscribed  by  space,  but 
that  on  the  contrary  all  finite  space  is  dependent  on  Him.  It 
has  both  a  negative  and  positive  side:  negative,  denying  all 
limitations  of  space;  and  positive,  asserting  that  God  is  above 
space. 

This  attribute  brings  God  into  distinct  contrast  with  all  that 
is  material.  Matter  is  in  space  and  is  space-filling.  Finite 
spirits  have  no  ubiquity.  To  every  finite  spirit  there  is  implied 
a  here,  which  also  implies  that  there  is  a  there  where  it  is  not. 
But  God  by  his  ubiquity  is  everywhere,  and  yet  in  a  certain  sense 
also  he  is  nowhere,  in  the  sense  of  not  being  limited.  The  mode 
of  the  divine  omnipresence  is  a  question  of  debate. 

1.  God  is  present  everywhere  in  working,  in  efficiency.    There 
is  an  operative  omnipresence  of  Deity.     He  acts  in  and  through 
all  space,  He  acts  with  and  through  every  substance  and  thing. 

2.  On  the  other  hand,  God  has  also  a  substantial  omnipresence, 
a  presence  of  his  substance  or  essence  everywhere.    In  what  this 
substantial  omnipresence  consists  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  con- 
ceive.    The  necessity  of  asserting  it  comes  from  the  fact  that 
if  we  do  not,  we  carry  in  our  idea  the  thought  that  God  is 
somewhere  and  works  everywhere  else,   and  that  is  limiting 
Him  at  once.     The  divine  spirit  must  be  everywhere  in  working, 
and  therefore  everywhere  in  essence,  but  hoiv  we  know  not.     It 
is  not  a  difficulty  respecting  God  alone.     The  case  is  so  in  a 
measure  with  ourselves.     Where  we  work  we  are  present,  but 
how  we  are  present  we  know  not.     We  cannot  define  ourselves 
with  any  relation  to  space  whatever^  as  we  can  an  atom.     The 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  21 

Biblical  representations  are  in  the  form  of  description :  Job  xi.  7 , 
Ps.  cxxxix. ;  Isa.  Ixvi.  1 ;  Jer.  xxiii.  23 ;  1  Kings  viii.  27.1 

§  5.   The  Divine  Spirituality,  including  the  Divine  Simplicity. 

These  are  also  enumerated  as  the  attributes  of  God,  although 
they  are  but  abstract  statements  for  the  concrete  spirit  in  its 
mode  of  being.  The  divine  spirituality  is  defined  as  negative 
and  positive :  negatively,  materiality  is  excluded ;  positively,  God 
is  asserted  to  be  essentially  spirit  or  life.  He  is  described  in 
Scripture  as  the  living  God,  as  having  life  in  himself,  the  most 
perfect  life,  efficiency,  and  power.  Involved  in  the  divine  spirit- 
uality is  the  divine  simplicity,  the  point  of  view  under  which  God, 
as  He  is  not  allied  to  matter,  so  is  not  susceptible  of  division,  not 
composite,  not  capable  of  being  decomposed.  Thus  God  is  set 
forth  in  the  Scriptures  in  contrast  with  idols,  no  graven  image 
can  be  made  to  express  Him :  He  is  invisible,  eternal,  spiritual. 

§  6.   The  Divine  Unity. 

The  idea  of  unity  is  a  simple  idea.  As  applied  to  God,  how- 
ever, it  is  not  used  as  it  often  is  in  regard  to  finite  things.  As 
applied  to  these,  unity  is  equivalent  to  one  of  a  class,  as,  one 
man,  an  individual  in  comparison  with  other  men,  an  individual 
copy  of  a  class.  This  is  not  the  sense  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
unity  of  God.  He  is  not  one  of  a  class.  The  synonymous  word 
here  is  not  one  but  only.  God  is  the  only  God.  There  is  only  one 
infinite,  eternal,  personal  being.  God  is  one  in  all  that  concerns 
absolute  divinity.  There  is  but  one  God. 

1.  The  Scriptural  argument  for  the  unity  of  God.  It  is  at  the 
basis  of  the  whole  Scriptures.  In  the  Old  Testament,  Exod. 
xx.  3;  Deut.  iv.  35,  vi.  4;  Ps.  cxxxv.  In  the  New  Testament, 
Mark  xii.  29;  John  xvii.  3;  1  Cor.  viii.  4;  Eph.  iv.  6;  1  Tim.  i. 
17,  ii.  5;  Rom.  xvi.  27.' 

1  In  Christian  literature  some  of  the  most  magnificent  descriptions  of  Deity  are 
those  of  his  immensity,  as  the  hymn  of  Abelard:  "  Super  cuncta,  subter  cuncta,"etc. 

8  Some  German  writers  have  endeavored  to  make  out  that  the  Scriptures  con- 
tain  the  vestiges  of  Polytheism,  as,  e.  g.,  in  the  word  Elohim.  Again,  in  represent- 
ing God  as  the  God  of  the  heavens,  the  God  of  hosts,  some  find  traces  of  star  wor- 
ship. But  star  worship  is  forbidden  in  the  early  Scriptures.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  Scriptures  which  has  any  reference  to  idolatry  except  in  the  way  of  opposition. 


*  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

2  The  significance  of  these  representations  that  God  is  one. 
It  is  implied  that  God  is  the  absolute  personality,  the  absolute 
causality,  the  absolute  independent  being;  that  He  is  thus  in 
contrast  with  idols,  that  He  is  the  only  being  to  whom  these 
characteristics  belong.  Deus  solus  unicus.  These  Scriptural  rep- 
resentations are  still  further  opposed  to  two  main  errors,  Poly- 
theism and  Pantheism.  The  opposition  to  polytheism  is  manifest. 
As  against  pantheism,  the  Scripture  represents  God  as  a  living, 
personal,  conscious  being,  one  in  contrast  with  any  mere  abstract 
idea,  such  as  the  generic  reason  or  life,  as  a  being  having  self-con- 
sciousness, blessed  in  himself.  All  his  attributes  are  in  constant 
life,  activity,  and  energy. 

3.  Our  rational  idea  of  God  cannot  carry  us  any  further  than 
this,  as  to  the  divinity:  that  God  is  the  absolute  personality  and 
causality,  and  that  He  is  the  only  being  to  whom  these  terms  can 
be  applied.    Eeason  does  not  decide  what  modifications  there  may 
be  in  the  mode  of  existence  of  the  divine  being,  as  compared  with 
that  of  creatures.    There  may  be  in  God  modifications  of  personality 
and  of  the  attributes,  which  may  make  Him  unlike  the  creature. 
What  the  Scriptures  demand,  and  our  moral  nature  demands,  is 
one  sole  being,  the  object  of  worship.     Scripture  and  reason  both 
reject  the  idea  of  two  absolute  beings,  or  two  infinite  beings. 
There  could  not  be  such.     Further  than  this,  however,  our  reason 
does  not  take  us. 

4.  The  sense  of  the  divine  unity  cannot  be  supposed  to  bt 
exclusive  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  as  the  Unitarians  suppose, 
for  the  following  reasons:  (a.)  Because  the  assertion  of  the  unity 
was  primarily  directed  in  the  Old  Testament  against  idolatry, 
the  worshiping  of  any  beings  less  than  God.     (6.)  Because  the 
sacred  writers  use  such  language  about  Christ  as  would  involve 
idolatry,  if  it  were  understood  that  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  ex- 
cluded the  divinity  of  Christ,     (c.)  The  Scriptures  would  be  in 
contradiction  to  themselves,  if  they  were  interpreted  as  exclud- 
ing the  divinity  of  Christ.1     "In  the  very  exclusion  of  number 
from  the  Godhead,  we  may  find  the  real  significance  of  the  unity 

1  In  "Bibl.  Sacr."  1846,  p.  770,  there  is  a  very  good  statement  on  this  point, 
from  Twesten. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  23 

of  God.  By  denying  to  Him  all  number,  we  ascribe  to  Him  ab- 
solute unity.  But  this  unity  is  still  an  immanent  attribute  of 
the  divine  nature."  Its  meaning  is,  that  the  nature  of  God  is 
not  capable  of  reduplication,  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  generic 
union,  which  includes  under  itself  many  or  several  individuals. 
Unitarians  make  a  great  assumption  when  they  call  themselves 
Unitarians,  as  if  they  defended  the  divine  unity.  The  divine 
unity  which  many  of  them  maintain  is  not  the  Scriptural  view; 
it  is  the  unity  of  an  individual  being;  God  is  represented  as  a 
single  individual,  as  one  compared  and  contrasted  with  other 
individual  beings.  But  this  is  neither  a  natural  nor  a  Scriptural 
view  of  God.  He  is  the  Supreme  Intelligence,  the  one  Supreme 
Personality  and  Causality,  but  not  one  as  an  individual  in  the 
sense  in  which  one  man  is  an  individual.  If  this  could  be  es- 
tablished, the  essential  Godhead  would  be  destroyed.  It  is  a  con- 
ception essentially  anthropomorphic. 


CHAPTER  IV, 

ATTRIBUTES  OF  GOD  AS  THE  SUPREME  REASON  AND  UNDERSTANDING. 

§  1.  Proof  that  God  is  the  most  perfect  Intelligence. 

This  is  proved:  (1)  By  the  idea  of  the  most  perfect  being 
(2)  From  the  intelligence  shown  in  the  world,  the  course  of  hu- 
man history,  and  also,  indirectly,  by  inference  from  our  own  in- 
telligence. "  He  that  made  the  eye,  shall  He  not  see  ?  "  (3)  The 
Scriptures  assert  the  divine  Intelligence  and  its  perfection,  set- 
ting forth  the  omniscience  and  the  wisdom  of  God:  Job  xii.  13; 
Ps.  cxxxix. ;  Luke  xvi.  15;  Rom.  xi.  33;  xvi.  27.  (4)  The  divine 
government  proves  the  divine  intelligence  The  only  basis  of 
certainty  in  God's  government  is  that  He  knows  what  is  to 
occur. 

§  2.  Definition  of  Omniscience. 

Calvin's  is  one  of  the  best:  "That  attribute  whereby  God 
knows  himself  and  all  other  things  in  one  eternal  and  most 


24  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

simple  act."  This  includes  what  is  omitted  in  many  definitions, 
the  knowledge  which  God  has  of  himself.  The  characteristics 
of  the  divine  knowledge  are  well  given  by  Dr.  Pye  Smith:  "It 
is  (a.)  Intuitive:  all  that  God  knows  He  knows  by  immediate 
view  as  we  know  things  by  direct  inspection;  (6.)  Simultaneous: 
all  that  occurs  in  all  times  is  in  the  divine  knowledge  at  once; 
(c.)  Exact;  (d.)  Infallible."  The  difference  between  the  divine 
knowledge  and  ours  is  thus  summed  up  in  most  theological 
statements:  We  acquire  knowledge,  but  God  knows  immedi- 
ately ;  we  acquire  in  succession,  but  God  knows  simultaneously ; 
we  have  a  knowledge  of  only  a  part  of  time,  God  has  a  knowl- 
edge of  all  time;  our  knowledge  is  indistinct,  God's  is  clear; 
ours  is  fallible,  God's  is  infallible. 

§  3.   The  objects  of  the  Divine  Knowledge. 

The  divine  knowledge  is  further  divided  in  regard  to  the 
objects  in  the  divine  mind.  (1)  God  knows  himself,  and  in 
himself  all  other  things,  so  far  as  they  come  from  Him.  This 
is  the  internal  knowledge.  (2)  God  truly  knows  all  things  as 
they  actually  come  to  be,  as  past,  present,  and  future.  He 
knows  them  under  their  real  relations.  This  knowledge  is  not 
conditioned  by  those  relations,  but  He  knows  them  in  those  re- 
lations. He  makes  those  relations.  (3)  God  knows  the  essences 
of  things,  and  here  is  a  point  where  the  divine  knowledge  sur- 
passes any  that  man  can  have.  Man  comes  to  the  barrier 
when  he  comes  to  the  essence,  but  he  knows  there  must  be  an 
essence,  and  it  must  be  an  object  of  knowledge.  From  our 
knowing  that  essences  are  and  our  ignorance  of  what  they  are, 
there  must  be  some  Being  who  knows  more  than  we  do.  This 
proves  that  there  must  be  an  omniscience.  (4)  God  knows 
what  is  possible  as  well  as  what  is  actual.  He  knows  the  pos- 
sibilities of  things.  In  making  any  human  being,  He  knows 
how  that  being  might  possibly  act.  He  knows  how  the  individ- 
ual will  act  under  certain  circumstances.  He  adopts  a  certain 
action  into  his  plan  and  this  secures  a  certain  occurrence,  but 
He  knows  also  what  is  possible.  This  is  opposed  to  the  panthe- 
istic view  as  given  by  Schleiermacher:  "God  knows  only  what 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  25 

is  certain,  what  comes  by  necessity  from  his  own.  being,  his 
own  nature,  and  not  what  is  possible."  But  if  God  knows  only 
what  is  and  not  what  is  possible,  his  knowledge  must  be  infe- 
rior in  some  respects  to  that  of  man,  because  man  can  conceive 
of  that  which  is  possible. 

§  4.   Of  Sdentia  Media. 

The  authentic  definition  of  this  is,  the  hypothetical  knowl- 
edge of  the  conditional  future.  Make  an  analysis  of  this  phrase. 
A  conditional  future  is  a  future  which  is  dependent  on  certain 
conditions  or  contingencies.  A  knowledge  of  a  conditional  fu- 
ture would  imply  a  certain  knowledge  of  that  future  with  its 
conditions  and  contingencies;  that  though  it  was  contingent 
there  was  a  certain  knowledge  of  it;  but  a  hypothetical  knowl- 
edge means  that  the  knowledge  is  still  subject  to  some  doubt. 
E.  (7.,  God  creates  a  certain  man  and  places  him  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances. What  he  does  is  dependent  upon  conditions,  upon 
his  surroundings  and  upon  his  will.  A  contingent  event  is  one 
dependent  on  will.  God  knows  what  the  man  will  do  under 
the  circumstances.  But  the  theory  of  sdentia  media  suggests 
that  God's  knowledge  is  not  certain  but  hypothetical.  E.  </., 
a  man  comes  to  a  place  where  four  roads  meet.  God  knows 
that  the  man  will  be  there  and  that  four  routes  will  be  open  to 
him,  knows  that  he  may  take  either,  knows  what  will  happen 
to  him  if  he  takes  this,  what  if  he  takes  that,  but  does  not  cer- 
tainly know  which  he  will  take.  For  each  -of  the  contingencies 
God  provides  and  meets  with  his  own  action  in  government 
whatever  the  man  may  do;  He  exhausts  and  provides  for  all 
the  possibilities  of  the  man's  action,  but  does  not  know  precisely 
what  that  action  will  be.  This  is  the  most  ingenious  theory  on 
the  Arminian  basis.  It  aims  to  leave  an  uncertainty  in  respect 
to  human  volition  and  at  the  same  time  to  secure  a  certainty  of 
divine  arrangement.1  The  form  in  which  the  theory  is  stated 
above  is  the  one  in  which  it  is  objectionable.  In  another  form 

1  The  theory  of  sdentia  media  was  first  propounded  by  Fonseca,  a  Portuguese 
Jesuit,  in  the  16th  century,  and  was  further  developed  by  Molina,  a  Spanish 
Jesuit,  in  the  16th  century.  It  was  opposed  by  the  Dominicans,  by  the  Jansenists, 
and  by  the  Protestants  generally. 


26  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

it  is  gi.ven  simply  as  the  knowledge  of  a  conditional  future,1  i.  e  > 
God  knows  all  that  a  creature  can  do,  then  determines  as  to 
what  the  creature  will  do,  and  thus  forms  his  plan.  The  divine 
wisdom  knows  all  that  is  possible,  arid  among  all  possible  things 
chooses  that  which  it  deems  best.  This  is  undoubtedly  correct 
arid  is  in  harmony  with  Calvinistic  views.  But  the  other  view, 
that  God  simply  provides  for  all  contingencies,  confounds  two 
things:  the  knowledge  of  all  possibilities,  which  is  true;  and  the 
assumption  that  God  does  not  know  which  of  the  possibilities 
will  become  actual.  Against  this  form  of  the  theory  the  two 
objections  are:  (a.)  It  makes  the  divine  acts  dependent  on 
man's  choice  or  will;  (b.)  It  annuls  the  certainty  of  future 
knowledge,  and  if  the  future  knowledge  is  uncertain,  the  knowl- 
edge is  imperfect,  there  is  no  omniscience. 

§  5.   The  Divine  Prescience  or  Foreknowledge. 

This  is  commonly  divided  into  knowledge  of  future  necessary 
things,  of  future  conditional  things,  and  of  future  contingent 
things.  The  future  necessary  things  are  those  which  are  in  the 
course  of  nature  connected  by  physical  sequence.  The  future  con- 
ditional things  are  those  which  will  be,  under  certain  conditions. 
The  future  contingent  things  are  usually  denned  as  events  depen- 
dent on  free  will.  The  divine  foreknowledge  was  doubted  as  early 
as  the  time  of  Cicero,  who  says:  "  If  the  acts  of  man  are  foreseen, 
then  there  is  a  certain  order  to  them,  an  order  of  causation, 
and  if  there  is  an  order  of  causation,  then  fate  is  the  result." 
Socinus  took  the  ground  that  there  may  be  some  things  which 
God  cannot  be  said  to  know  in  any  way.  Kothe  says  that  God 
in  creating  man  free,  necessarily  relinquished  his  knowledge  of 
future  actions.  Dr.  Adam  Clark  and  Methodists  generally  de- 
fine omniscience  as  the  power  to  know  all  things.  They  deny 
that  God  does  know  all  future  events,  but  this  is  because  He 
does  not  choose  to  know.  As  omnipotence  is  the  power  to  do 
all  things,  so  omniscience  is  the  power  to  know  all  things,  but 
this  does  not  imply  that  all  things  are  actually  known.  But 
omniscience,  if  omniscience  at  all,  must  be  complete  in  itself. 
1  In  this  form  it  is  carefully  stated  by  Knapp. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  2t 

it  must  be  the  knowledge  of  all  things.  Unless  God  have 
knowledge  of  future  contingent  events,  we  cannot  say  that 
Pie  is  omniscient,  and  in  order  that  there  may  be  any  cer- 
tainty in  the  divine  government,  God  must  know  what  is  to 
occur  in  the  future. 

There  are  two  chief  sources  of  objection  to  this  doctrine,  viz., 
that  it  is  inconsistent  with  free  agency,  and  that  we  cannot 
know  how  God  can  know  future  contingent  events.  Answer 
to  the  first  objection:  The  difficulty  is  only  with  those  who  deny 
that  liberty  and  certainty  can  be  reconciled.  If  these  are  con 
sistent,  then  God  may  know  how  free  agents  will  act.  So  the 
question  runs  over  into  the  other,  whether  certainty  and  free 
agency  are  inconsistent  and  contradictory  ideas.  Even  in  respect 
to  man,  our  knowing  an  event  as  certain  does  not  prevent  its  be- 
ing free.  We  can  predict  how  some  men  will  act  under  certain 
circumstances.  If  those  who  know  a  good  deal  about  man  may 
predict  with  more  certainty,  He  who  knows  all  about  man  may 
know  with  all  certainty.  If  a  tolerable  knowledge  of  certainty 
with  us  is  consistent  with  free  will,  who  may  say  that  a  total 
knowledge  may  not  be  consistent  with  free  will  ?  The  answer 
to  the  second  objection,  that  omniscience  as  implying  the 
knowledge  of  future  contingent  events,  or  events  dependent 
on  free  will,  is  inconsistent  with  free  agency,  is  to  be  considered 
more  fully  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  divine  decrees.  It 
may  be  said  here:  (a.)  that  the  objection  seems  to  rest  on  the 
assumption  that  God  in  respect  to  knowledge  has  a  past,  present, 
and  future,  so  that  the  limitations  of  time  in  respect  to  knowl- 
edge apply  to  Him.  This  would  assume  that  the  whole  veil  of 
futurity  lies  before  God  as  before  us.  But  there  cannot  be  any- 
thing future  to  the  divine  knowledge  any  more  than  there  can 
to  the  divine  being.  (6.)  God  may  know  events  in  their  causes. 
If  He  knows  all  the  causes,  then  He  may  know  all  the  events. 
This  is  a  way  in  which  God  may  know  the  possible  future.  Of 
course  we  here  include  in  the  cause,  free  will.  God  who  made 
it  may  know  how  it  will  act  under  certain  circumstances,  and 
may  adopt  that  action  into  his  plan,  (c.)  God  also  knows  the 
essences  of  things,  and  thus  has  a  source  of  knowledge  to  us  in- 


^8  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

scrutable,  so  that  although  we  may  not  be  able  to  conceive  how 
God  knows,  yet  He  may  know. 

§  6.   The  Divine  Reason. 

Not  only  is  God's  intelligence  or  understanding  omniscient, 
knowing  all  things,  but  in  God  is  also  the  primal  reason.  In 
God  is  the  source  of  the  ideas  and  knowledge  of  all  intelligences. 
In  the  divine  mind  are  the  archetypes  of  all  truth.  Others  have 
truth  only  by  gift  and  derivation.  The  ideas  of  all  things  are 
ultimately  in  the  divine  mind,  are  eternal.  That  is  the  old 
Patristic  view  and  is  the  sense  and  heart  of  the  Kealism  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  Pantheistic  view  says  that  the  ideas  accord- 
ing to  which  all  things  are  fashioned  are  extant  in  the  universe; 
the  Theistic  «view  says  that  they  are  only  in  the  divine  mind. 
The  ideas  of  space,  time,  goodness,  etc.,  exist  only  in  the  divine 
mind.  This  was  the  sense  of  the  Logos  in  the  ancient  schools, 
the  ideas  in  the  divine  mind  according  to  which  the  world  was 
fashioned.  In  the  school  of  Philo,  Logos  means  the  same  as 
Wisdom  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  In  Prov.  viii.  22  seq.  Wisdom 
is  personified. 

Proof  of  the  divine  wisdom:  (a.)  The  wisdom  of  God  is 
asserted  in  Scripture:  Job  xii.  6;  Proverbs  iii.  19;  Isa.  xl.  13, 
etc.  (6.)  Besides,  it  is  proved  a  priori  from  the  divine  omnis- 
cience. It  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  an  omniscient  and 
omnipotent  and  holy  God  could  be  other  than  wise.  There  is 
no  conceivable  reason  for  God's  being  other  than  in  perfect  and 
eternal  accordance  with  wisdom,  (c.)  Also  there  are  collateral 
proofs  from  the  history  and  order  of  nature,  the  whole  plan  and 
history  of  the  world,  the  divine  moral  government,  and  especi- 
ally from  the  scheme  of  redemption,  where  we  have  the  highest 
wisdom  manifest. 

Definition  of  Wisdom:  That  attribute  of  God  whereby  He 
produces  the  best  possible  results  with  the  best  possible  means. 
That  is  wisdom  everywhere,  and  in  God  it  is  superlative.  The 
best  possible  results  would  of  course  bring  into  view  the  great 
end  of  God  in  creating  the  universe.  Taking  that  end  into  view, 
considering  that  as  decided,  wisdom  may  be  defined  in  another 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  29 

form,  bringing  out  the  divine  attributes  which  concur  in  it,  viz., 
the  divine  intelligence  and  love.  Then  God's  wisdom  is  seen  in 
his  using  the  best  means  to  secure  the  supremacy  of  holiness  in 
the  universe.  Intelligence  and  love  both  concur.  Wisdom  ia 
not  merely  an  attribute  of  the  intellect,  but  also  of  the  heart. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ATTRIBUTES    OF    THE    DIVINE    WILL. 

§  1.  Idea  of  the  Divine  Will 

In  some  of  the  discussions  in  Theology,  difficulty  is  occa- 
sioned by  the  different  meanings  of  the  term  Will.  In  respect 
to  God  it  is  used  in  at  least  four  different  senses,  viz.,  (1)  As 
the  faculty  of  self-determination,  choice,  power  of  determining 
self  to  any  given  course  of  action.  (2)  As  significant  of  what 
God  desires  should  be,  not  as  expressive  of  a  power  but  of  a 
desire.  This  by  the  Scholastics  was  called  "  Velleity."  (3)  What 
God  determines  shall  be,  what  God  adopts  as  a  part  of  his  plan. 
(4)  That  which  expresses  the  whole  moral  nature  of  God,  the 
equivalent  to  which  would  be  the  divine  holiness  or  the  divine 
love,  considered  as  the  supreme  moral  attributes. — These  differ- 
ent senses  are  important  in  the  discussion  of  two  main  points: 
(a.)  as  to  the  doctrine  of  decrees,  (&.)  as  to  the  doctrine  of 
virtue. 

Definitions  of  the  Divine  Will  Gerhard:  "The  will  is  the 
essence  of  God.  It  is  God  willing,  Deus  volens"  Calvin:  "The 
will  of  God  is  that  attribute  whereby  God  tends  to  the  good  rec- 
ognized by  his  intellect."  The  most  general  idea  of  will  is 
that  power  by  which  one  prefers  and  acts  out  his  preferencea 
It  includes  both  of  these  conceptions,  both  immanent  and  exec- 
utive acts.  Freedom  ought  also  to  be  defined  so  as  to  include 
these  two  conceptions;  "doing  as  one  pleases"  should  not  be 
understood  as  confining  freedom  to  the  executive  act;  there  ia 


30  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

freedom  in  the  being  pleased  as  well  as  in  the  doing.  The  divine 
will  may  be  defined  in  a  comprehensive  sense  as  that  capacity 
of  the  divine  Being  whereby  He  chooses  and  acts  for  the  highest 
good.  That  combines  the  two  senses  of  will,  and  states  that  they 
have  ultimate  respect  to  the  highest  good.  The  divine  will  as 
thus  defined  involves  radically  three  notions:  (a.)  Freedom, 
(5.)  Power,  arid  (c.)  Moral  preference.  The  divine  will  as  in- 
volving freedom  is  the  absolute  freedom  of  God,  as  involving 
power  is  the  divine  omnipotence,  and  as  preferring  what  is  best 
is  the  divine  holiness. 

§  2.   The  Distinction  of  the  Divine  Will  as  to  its  Objects. 

1.  There  is  an  internal  activity  of  the  divine  will  which  we 
must  conceive  of  as  in  God  himself  under  the  three  points  of  view 
named,     (a.)  As  freedom.     It  is  the  essential  freedom  of  God, 
the  attribute  by  which  He  is  the  author  of  all  his  acts.     It  in- 
volves the  notion  of  the  highest  freedom  and  the  highest  moral 
necessity.     (6.)  As  omnipotence.     It  must  be  conceived  as  hav- 
ing an  internal  sphere,  and  there  it  is  the  perpetual  and  self-sus- 
taining energy  of  Deity,     (c.)  In  the  sense  of  preference.     Here 
also  it  has  an  internal  sphere.     It  is  the  immanent  preference 
for  the  highest  good. 

2.  External  relation  of  the  divine  will.     Here  it  is  viewed 
as  omnipotence,     (a.)  As  power  over  possibilities.     It  is  that 
characteristic   whereby    what   God   wills    He   might   not,    and 
what  He  does  not  will  He  might.     It  lies  in  his  own  pleasure 
to  do  or  to  refrain  from  doing.     He  might  or  He  might  not 
produce  what  He  does  produce  in  the  world.     (6.)  Divine  om- 
nipotence as  actually  exerted  in  the  creation  and  preservation 
of  the  universe,     (c.)  The  divine  holiness  in  relation  to  the  cre- 
ation.    This  is  seen  in  God's  willing  and   bringing  about  the 
highest  good,  which  is  the  glory  of  God  in  the  best  possible 
moral  system. 

NOTE.  The  divine  will  can  never  be  considered  as  arbitrary 
The  true  sense  of  the  expression  that  He  does  as  He  pleases  is, 
that  He  is  independent  of  the  will  of  His  creatures,  though  hav- 
ing the  highest  and  best  reasons  for  what  He  does. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  31 

§  3.   Other  Distinctions  as  to  the  Mode  of  Manifestation  of  the 
Divine  Will 

1.  The  decretive  and  preceptive  will  of  God.     The  decretive 
is  that  which  has  reference  to  the  divine  decrees,  what  God 
purposes  shall  take  place.     The  preceptive  is  that  which  God 
commands  his  creatures  to  do.     These  are  often  confounded  by 
Armiriians.     God  commands  all  his  creatures  to  be  holy.     He 
permits  sin.     The  permission  is  a  part  of  the  divine  decree,  but 
God  does  not  enjoin  or  desire  what  He  thus  permits.     Exam- 
ple of  the  decretive  will,  Isa.  xlvi.  11;  of  the  preceptive,  the 
Decalogue. 

2.  The  permissive  and  efficient  will  of  God.     This  is  the  dis- 
tinction made  all  through  the  history  of  Calvinistic  theology 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Hopkinsian  school  in  New  England. 
God  permits  the  morally  evil  and  effects  the  good.     In  respect 
to  sin,  He  for  wise  reasons  simply  determines  not  to  prevent  it. 
all  things  considered.     The  efficient  will  of  God  has  respect  to 
what  God  directly  produces  through  his  own  agency.     The  im- 
portance  of  this   distinction   is,   that  we   cannot   logically  or 
rationally  or  morally  conceive  that  God  would  directly  produce 
by  his  positive  efficiency  what  He  forbids.     Accordingly  we 
must  employ  some  milder  term  than  efficiency  with  respect  to 
the  relation  of  God  to  moral  evil,  and  the  term  selected  is  per- 
mission.    This  may  not  be  the  best,  but  it  is  well  to  retain  it 
until  we  get  a  better. 

3.  The  secret  and  revealed  will  of  God.     This  relates  to  what 
God  keeps  in  his  own  counsel,  and  to  what  He  has  communi- 
cated:  Deut   xxix.   29;   Rom  xi.  33.     The  same  distinction  is 
signified  in  somewhat   barbarous   Latin  by  the  two   phrases, 
"voluntas  signi"  and  "voluntas  placiti"     This  distinction   used 
to  be  much  insisted  on  in  the  discussion  of  the  divine  decrees: 
1  Tim.  ii.  4;  2  Pet.  iii.  9.     It  was  said  to  be  the  revealed  will 
of  God  that  all  should  be  saved,  the  secret  will  or  actual  de- 
termination in  the  matter,  that  some  should  be.     A  better  point 
of  view  for  this  is  found  in  the  distinction  between  what  God 
desires,  in  itself  considered,  and  what  He  determines  to  bring  to 
pass  on  the  whole.     In  itself  considered,  He  desires  the  happiness 


32  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

of  every  creature,  but  on  the  whole,  He  may  not  determine  to 
bring  this  to  pass. 

4.  Other  distinctions  have  been  made,  but  they  are  not  of 
much  service,  (a.)  The  antecedent  and  consequent  will  of 
God.  The  antecedent,  God  desires  the  salvation  of  all.  The 
consequent,  He  determines  to  save  some.  Here  will  is  used  in 
the  two  senses  of  general  benevolence  and  purpose,  (b.)  Abso- 
lute and  conditional.  What  God  wills  without  conditions  and 
what  is  dependent  on  moral  character.  He  wills  sanctification 
through  the  truth,  but  He  wills  the  renewal  of  the  soul  without 
antecedent  repentance  and  faith,  because  the  renewal  is  in  the 
repentance  and  faith,  (c.)  The  efficacious  and  inefficacious. 
That  producing  by  efficiency,  and  that  which  does  not  act 
directly. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    OMNIPOTENCE    OF    GOD. 

This  is  the  attribute  of  the  divine  will  as  power  or  efficiency. 

1.  The  idea  of  Power.     It  is  a  simple  idea  in  our  minds,  of 
force  exerted.     The  origin  of  it  is  probably  the  exercise  of  our 
own  power  of  willing  or  choosing.     We  get  it  not  so  much  from 
external  nature,  as  from  the  putting  forth  of  energy  in  our  own 
acts  and  from  the  resistance  which  we  encounter. 

2.  Omnipotence  is  that  attribute  by  which  God  is  the  abso- 
lute  and   highest   causality;   the   absolute,   i.    e.,    complete   in 
himself,  the  highest,  i.  e.,  above  all  other  causes.     In  popular 
definition  omnipotence  is  said  to  be  that  attribute  by  which  God 
can  do  whatever  He  pleases.     But  this  is  not  a  sufficient  state- 
ment, because  it  limits  the  omnipotence  to  the  doing,  whereas 
it  is  a  capacity  of  doing  as  well  as  an  actual  doing.     Philosoph- 
ical limitation  is  given  to  it  in  another  way,  that  God  can  do 
whatever  is  possible  or  whatever  is  an  object  of  power. 

3.  Proof  of  the  divine  omnipotence. 

(a.)  Rational  proof  from  God's  very  nature.     We  cannot  con- 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  33 

ceivo  it  otherwise  than  that  an  infinite  and  eternal  being  should 
be  all-powerful. 

(I.)  From  the  order  and  existence  of  the  created  universe. 
The  act  of. creation  involves  an  omnipotent  energy,  if  anything 
does. 

(c.)  Biblical  proof.  This  is  various  and  manifold.  Gen. 
x vii.  1 ;  Job  ix.  12 ;  Ps.  cxv.  3 ;  Jer.  xxxii.  17 ;  Rom.i.  20 ;  Eph.  i.  19 ; 
Rev.  xix.  G. 

4  Limits  of  Omnipotence.  This  phraseology  is  hardly  strict. 
The  limitations  are  simply  those  which  arise  from  the  divine 
nature  or  the  nature  of  things,  and  are  not  any  proper  limitations 
of  divine  power.  They  relate  to  points  which  do  not  involve 
power,  as,  e.  g.,  that  which  is  contradictory  cannot  be  established; 
in  other  words,  it  cannot  be  an  object  of  power.  So  God  cannot 
change  mathematical  relations  or  make  right  to  be  wrong.  This 
simply  means  that  God's  power  cannot  be  conceived  as  mani- 
fested except  in  harmony  with  and  as  expressive  of  his  perfect 
nature.  It  is  not  viewed  as  limited  by  anything  outside  of 
himself.  The  limitation  comes  from  the  perfection  of  his  being. 

Here  comes  up  the  question  whether  God  can  sin.  So  far  as 
the  real  act  is  concerned,  the  answer  must  be  No.  It  is  incon- 
sistent with  his  nature.  It  would  destroy  his  divinity,  that 
holiness  or  purity  which  makes  the  essence  of  his  divinity.  If 
He  could  sin  He  would  not  be  God.  The  question  however  is 
discussed  on  another  point,  as  to  the  bare,  abstract,  metaphysical 
possibility.  Has  God  power  enough  to  sin  if  He  had  a  mind 
to  ?  Then  the  question  is  absurd.  Nobody  would  contest  it.1 

Another  question  is  whether  God  can  destroy  himself.  This 
involves  a  self-contradiction,  the  inconceivability  of  a  self-anni- 
hilation, in  which  self  both  asserts  and  destroys  its  energy. 

5.  Schleiermacher's  definition  of  Omnipotence.  He  says  it 
is  not  properly  understood  as  God's  power  to  do  what  He  pleases, 
but  rather  that  God  is  the  cause  of  all  that  is.  Also,  that  there 

The  question  has  been  brought  up  in  connection  with  "  ability."  When  it  is 
said  that  a  man  continuing  in  his  sin  can  repent  but  will  not,  it  is  said  that  a 
parallel  case  is,  God  has  the  power  to  sin  but  will  not.  This  certainly  does  not 
open  much  help  to  the  sinful  man,  for  if  he  should  not  repent  until  God  sins  he 
^vould  never  repent. 


3  i  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  no  causality  in  God  other  than  what  is  manifested.  Tlure  is 
no  power  of  doing  but  simply  a  doing.  There  is  no  reserved 
causality  in  God.  The  reply  is:  this  is  contrary  to  the  very 
idea  of  rational,  intelligent,  andindependent  being.  If  God  is  such 
a  being,  his  power  cannot  be  limited  by  what  is  produced.  The 
hypothesis  rests  on  an  essentially  pantheistic  notion  of  what  God 
is;  that  He  is  simply  a  substance  pouring  itself  out,  and  that 
all  that  exists  is  simply  an  emanation  from  Him,  simply  an  evo- 
lution of  his  nature. 

6.  Objects  of»the  divine  omnipotence. 

These  are:  (a.)  Himself,  God  is  self- sustaining,  (b.)  The 
works  of  creation,  bringing  these  into  being  and  upholding  them. 
(c.)  The  moral  world,  omnipotence  being  directly  exerted  here 
in  miracles  and  in  the  renewal  of  the  soul,  while  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature  it  is  exerted  through  second  causes,  making 
itself  thus  a  regulated,  ordinated  omnipotence.1 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    DIVINE    HOLINESS. 

This  is  the  attribute  of  the  Divine  Will  considered  as  the 
immanent  preference  for  the  highest  moral  good  or  for  that 
which  is  in  itself  righteous.  This  is  the  positive  aspect  of  the 
attribute  Negatively,  it  excludes  all  moral  imperfection  and 
all  moral  impurity,  not  only  from  the  Godhead,  but  as  far  as 
may  be  from  the  sphere  of  God's  government.  The  divine  holi- 
ness, taken  in  its  fullest  extent,  is  applied  in  a  threefold  way: 
(1)  As  designating  the  internal  operation  of  Deity;  (2)  As 
expressed  in  the  law  of  God  which  is  holy,  just,  and  good. 
The  law  expresses  God's  holiness  in  the  form  of  injunction 
upon  others.  (3)  It  has  a  sphere  in  demanding  moral  con- 
formity on  the  part  of  others.  "  Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy." 

1  The  question  whether  God  could  prevent  all  sin  will  come  up  in  its  proper 
place. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.  35 

As  God  is  holy,  so  must  all  moral  beings  allied  with  Him  be 
holy.  Holiness  is  sometimes  used  as  equivalent  to  justice  and 
contrasted  with  benevolence,  holiness  having  respect  to  right- 
eousness and  benevolence  having  respect  to  happiness.  But  it 
is  better  not  to  use  it  in  so  restricted  a  sense,  but  rather  to 
employ  it  to  express  the  sum  of  God's  moral  perfections,  his 
internal  preference  for  the  highest  moral  good.1 

The  definitions  of  the  moral  attributes  of  God  depend  upon 
the  ethical  theory  which  one  adopts.  Those  who  take  the  Utili- 
tarian or  Happiness  view  define  all  these  as  having  respect  to 
happiness.  The  same  is  true  when  holiness  is  taken  to  be  the 
chief  good,  all  the  moral  attributes  being  then  defined  as  hav- 
ing ultimate  respect  to  holiness.  The  various  definitions  and 
statements  of  these  attributes  form  a  wilderness.  The  difficulty 
arises  largely  from  the  fact  that  theologians  are  not  agreed  as 
to  what  attribute  shall  be  viewed  as  the  highest  in  God.  In 
our  view,  holiness  is  the  best  term  to  use  for  this,  and  we  frame 
our  definitions  iu  accordance  with  this  usage. 

In  pagan  antiquity  the  idea  of  holiness  was  external.  It  was 
simply  the  separation  of  the  sacred  from  the  profane,  and  this 
was  largely  the  idea  at  the  beginning  of  the  spiritual  educa*- 
tion  of  the  Jews.  In  no  other  religion  than  that  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  is  holiness  considered  as  a  distinct  moral 
attribute.  There  holiness  is  made  supreme  in  God  and  made 
to  be  binding  upon  men,  and  in  no  system  of  nature  is  this  the 
case.  Objectors  sometimes  say  that  all  the  precepts  of  the 
Bible  can  be  found  in  pagan  creeds,  but  there  is  no  such  pre- 
cept as  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy."-  Neither  is  there  any 
proof  of  love  being  the  supreme  virtue  in  any  pagan  system. 

Questions  sometimes  raised  in  respect  to  the  Divine  Holiness, 
(1)  It  is  said,  we  are  holy,  because  conformed  to  a  law;  as  God 
is  holy,  He  must  be  conformed  to  a  law,  and  therefore  there  is 
a  law  above  God.  Reply:  There  is  no  need  of  supposing  a 
law  to  which  God  is  subject.  God  is  himself  the  reality  of  the 
law.  There  is  110  law  above  Him.  The  law  is  the  expression 

1  There  is  one  definition  of  love  which  would  correspond  with  this,  as  we  shall 
hereafter  remark. 


36  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

of  the  divine  moral  excellence,  and  holiness  is  the  moral  ex- 
cellence itself.  The  definition  of  holiness  as  conformity  to  a 
law  is  inaccurate.  Even  our  own  holiness  is  not  found  in  our 
accordance  with  a  law.  That  describes  holiness,  but  does  not 
define  it.  Holiness  is  not  holy  because  it  is  conformed  to  the 
law,  but  because  it  is  the  best  moral  state  possible.  (2)  An- 
other point  of  debate  is  raised  in  the  statement:  God  is  holy, 
and  in  that  choice  is  involved,  it  is  a  state  of  the  divine  will: 
then  He  might  not  have  chosen ;  and  hence,  He  might  not  have 
been  holy.  To  this  we  say:  (a.)  It  is  a  bare,  abstract  possibility, 
purely  metaphysical.  (&.)  The  state  of  God  as  holy  is  sponta- 
neously such  or  eternally  so,  by  a  moral  necessity.  It  is  not 
holy  because  God  first  chose  to  be  holy,  and  then  became  so. 
Such  a  choice  is  utterly  inapplicable  to  Deity,  involving  a  time 
when  God  was  not  holy.  The  holiness  is  the  immanent  moral 
state.  Wherever  there  is  holiness  there  is  a  choice,  but  holi- 
ness is  not  the  product  of  a  choice.  A  holy  state  cannot  be 
produced  in  a  creature  as  a  creature  moves  an  arm.  Holiness, 
repentance,  faith,  love  are  the  choices  themselves.  So  in  God 
holiness  was  not  the  result  of  a  choice,  but  an  eternal  choice. 
('3)  Another  question  raised  is,  Whether  God's  will  as  holy  i« 
the  source  of  right.  Eemarks:  (a.)  Taking  God's  will  as  the 
source  of  being  to  all  his  creatures,  He  gives  them  all,  and 
gives  them  undoubtedly,  the  idea  of  right  and  of  moral  law; 
God's  will  is  the  source  of  right  in  that  sense.  (6.)  Taking 
God's  will  as  expressing  God's  moral  pleasure  or  holiness, 
that  will  may  be  said  to  be  the  rule  and  standard  of  right,  be- 
cause it  is  supreme  moral  excellence  to  which  we  should  be 
conformed,  (c.)  Taking  the  question  to  be  whether  God's 
will  creates  right  and  wrong,  so  that  it  can  make  right  to 
be  wrong  and  wrong  to  be  right,  it  becomes  absurd,  (d.)  Yet, 
things  morally  indifferent  may  be  so  commanded  that  they 
become  right  or  wrong  under  the  circumstances  or  relations; 
not  that  their  nature  is  changed,  but  for  wise  reasons  God  has 
chosen  thus  to  command.  All  external  acts  are  in  different  in 
themselves  and  are  made  right  or  wrong  only  by  the  motive 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  37 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE    DIVINE   LOVE. 

§  1.  Definitions  of  Divine  Love. 

These  vary  like  those  of  the  divine  holiness,  benevolence, 
etc.  The  divine  love  is  taken  most  truly  as  equivalent  to  the 
divine  holiness,  in  the  sense  that  love  is  viewed  as  the  sub- 
jective feeling,  while  holiness  is  the  proper  term  for  that  as 
descriptive  of  its  moral  character  or  excellence.  "  God  is  love." 
Love  is  the  interior  state.  Holiness  is  its  characteristic.  Love 
is  the  internal  affection.  Holiness  is  the  purity  of  that  affection. 

The  best  definition  is,  Love  is  the  attribute  by  which  God 
delights  in  and  seeks  to  communicate  all  good,  especially  moral 
good:  and  as  correlative  to  this,  it  is  implied  that  God  is  averse 
to  and  must  overrule  and  punish  all  moral  evil.  Punishment 
has  a  ground  in  love.  If  I  love  moral  excellence,  I  must  hate 
and  oppose  that  which  is  opposed  to  moral  excellence. 

The  question  arises  whether  the  divine  love  can  be  exhausted 
or  fully  met  within  the  sphere  of  the  Godhead  itself.  Love  seeks 
an  object  to  fasten  upon.  If  we  say,  the  object  of  the  divine 
love  is  the  creature,  then  until  the  creature  existed,  God's  love 
was  simply  a  craving.  Accordingly  some  from  the  attribute 
of  the  divine  love  deduce  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  Love 
seeks  an  object.  Divine  love  is  infinite.  It  seeks  an  infinite 
object.  Therefore  there  must  be  in  the  Godhead  a  distinction 
of  persons.  Taking  this  as  a  demonstration  of  the  Trinity,  it  in 
imperfect,  but  as  an  illustration  it  is  good. 

§  2.  Proofs  of  the  Divine  Love. 

1.  From   Creation.     In   the   order   of  creation,   love  shines 
through  all  the  hosts  of  animated  beings. 

2.  From  Redemption  especially.     1  John  iii.  1;  iii.  16. 

3.  The  Scriptures  abound  in  descriptions  of  the  divine  love, 
besides  those  which  are  given  in  connection  with  the  plan  of 
redemption.     1  John  iv.  16;  Matt.  v.  45:  Rom.  v.  8;  Luke  vi.  35 


38  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  3.  Divisions  of  the  Divine  Love  as  to  its  Objects. 

The  divine  love  has  two  main  objects,  the  primary,  God 
himself,  the  secondary,  the  creature.  In  the  supreme  love  of 
God  to  himself,  egoism  is  excluded  by  the  nature  of  God.  In 
loving  himself  most,  God  loves  the  embodiment  of  all  that  is 
supreme  in  excellence.1  The  divine  love  viewed  as  having  re- 
spect to  its  secondary  object,  the  creature,  has  two  main  forms: 
the  love  of  benevolence  and  of  complacency.  The  love  of  be- 
nevolence is  that  disposition  of  God  or  that  form  or  modification 
of  the  divine  love  which  leads  God  to  desire  to  communicate 
happiness  to  all  his  sentient  creatures,  which  leads  Him  to  de- 
light in  all  their  happiness.  The  love  of  complacency  is  that 
element^in  the  divine  love  which  leads  God  to  communicate  and 
delight  in  the  holiness  of  his  creatures.  The  love  of  benevolence 
may  be  considered  as  having  respect  to  happiness,  the  love  of  com- 
placency to  holiness;  but  both  make  up  the  divine  love,  both 
together  and  not  one  alone.  Complacency  is  taking  pleasure  in 
something.  Benevolence  is  disposition  to  do  good  to  any  one. 

§  4   Other  modifications  of  the  Divine  Love. 

Mercy  and  pity.  These  describe  love  as  exercised  towards 
the  wretched,  seeking  their  happiness.  Mercy  is  sometimes 
used  in  reference  to  our  needs  as  sinners.  Luke  i.  72 ;  here,  the 
term  mercy  is  equivalent  to  grace,  which  is  the  divine  love 
towards  the  undeserving  and  sinful. 

Patience  and  long-suffering.     Eom.  ix.  22,  ii.  4;  1  Pet.  iii.  20. 

Lenity  of  God,  his  goodness  in  mitigating  punishment. 
Rom  xi.  22. 

§  5.   The  Divine  Benevolence. 

If  the  divine  love  as  benevolence,  or  as  exercised  towards  the 
creature,  be  taken  as  the  highest  moral  attribute,  it  is  not  properly 
defined  as  the  communication  of  happiness  apart  from  holiness. 
If  it  be  taken  as  a  modification  of  the  highest  attribute,  it  may 
bear  that  restricted  sense.  It  has  been  said  that  Edwards  con- 

1  It  is  not  best  perhaps  to  make  this  prominent  in  preaching,  lest  it  should 
be  misunderstood;  self-love  in  God  being  the  highest  excellence  and  in  the  crea» 
ture  the  ground  of  all  sin. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  39 

sidered  benevolence  to  be  the  highest  moral  attribute,  made  the 
divine  holiness  to  consist  in  benevolence  and  then  made  the 
benevolence  to  have  ultimate  respect  to  happiness.  But  this  is 
not  the  real  view  of  Edwards.1  If  benevolence  be  defined  as 
having  ultimate  respect  to  happiness,  and  at  the  same  time  be 
made  the  highest  moral  attribute,  the  following  objections  lie 
against  the  position:  (1)  The  theory  presupposes  that  happiness 
is  the  highest  good,  which  is  yet  to  be  proved.  In  the  present 
stage  of  our  inquiries  we  certainly  cannot  take  this  for  granted. 
Rather  we  must  assert  that  happiness  is  not  the  highest  good, 
that  holiness  is;  that  being  the  highest  good  it  involves  of  course 
a  state  of  happiness  as  its  accompaniment,  but  the  essence  of 
the  highest  good  is  holiness.2 

2.  If  happiness  be  the  ultimatum  of  benevolence,  that  to 
which  it  tends,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with  this  the  existence 
of  so  much  misery  in  the  world.  Misery  may  be  defended  in 
relation  to  sin,  and  if  holiness  is  the  greatest  object  to  be 
achieved;  but  if  happiness  is  the  greatest  good,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  this  can  be  made  consistent  with  the  actual  amount 
and  kinds  of  misery.  It  is  said  in  reply,  "Not  all  happiness  but 
the  highest  happiness  is  the  object;"  but  then  what  is  the 
highest  happiness?  If  it  is  happiness  essentially  then  the  same 
difficulty  lies  against  the  position ;  if  the  "  highest  happiness  "  is 
something  more  than  happiness  and  includes  another  element, 
then  that  is  the  thing  to  be  found  out.  What  is  that  element 
in  the  highest  happiness  which  makes  it  the  greatest  good; 
whereas  other  forms  of  happiness  are  not?  Now  there  is  hap- 
piness or  pleasure  in  sin  and  there  is  happiness  in  virtue,  but 
the  difference  of  happiness  is  not  what  makes  the  difference 
between  sin  and  virtue,  because  it  would  then  be  simply  a  dif- 
ference of  degree.  Then  there  must  be  in  the  highest  happiness 
an  element  which  is  not  in  the  lower,  which  gives  the  moral 

»  There  are  but  one  or  two  passages  in  his  treatise  which  would  possibly  bear 
that  interpretation  and  they  are  not  in  formal  parts  of  the  work.  The  younger 
Edwards  no  doubt  made  benevolence  to  have  ultimate  respect  to  happiness.  The 
assertion  that  the  elder  Edwards  did  so  has  been  made  so  positively  that  it  would 
be  well  for  every  one  interested  in  the  subject  to  read  his  treatise  with  this  ques- 
tion in  view. 

2  Happiness  is  but  its  glitter. 


40  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

character;  but  that  element  cannot  be  the  happiness,  because 
that  is  what  it  has  in  common  with  sin.  It  must  be  a  proper 
moral  element 

§  6.  Sources  of  Proof  of  the  Divine  Benevolence. 

(1)  From  the  idea  of  a  perfect  being.  There  is  no  conceiva- 
ble motive  for  such  a  one  to  be  otherwise.  (2)  From  the  whole 
testimony  and  revelation  of  God  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures. 
(3)  From  the  sentient  creation,  the  millions  of  sources  of  happi- 
ness found  in  nature  and  in  man;  from  the  fact  that  all  the  func- 
tions of  animal  life  and  of  man  in  their  proper  and  normal  use  are 
accompanied  by  happiness,  and  that  there  is  nothing  in  nature 
to  show  a  malevolent  intent  (Paley,  Nat.  Theol.).  (4)  From 
man's  whole  nature,  intellectual,  moral,  social.  (5)  From  the  pur- 
pose and  plan  of  Kedemption.  Here  is  the  revelation  of  the 
highest  benevolence. 

§  7.   Objections  to  the  Divine  Benevolencefrom  the  existence  of  Evil. 

Evil  is  of  two  kinds,  natural  and  moral.  Natural  evil  is  pain 
from  physical  causes,  moral  evil  is  sin  and  its  consequent  suffering. 

1.  In  respect  to  natural  evil.  Natural  suffering,  i.  e.,  the  suf- 
fering from  physical  causes,  cannot  be  shown  to  be  inconsistent 
with  benevolence.  It  is  often  warning,  it  is  in  different  ways 
subservient  to  the  good  of  the  organism.  Much  of  pain  is  a 
means  of  good  in  the  discipline  of  the  powers  of  individuals. 
Pain  is  not  the  worst  thing  in  the  world.  Benevolence  may  in- 
flict pain  and  may  constitute  beings  so  that  they  shall  suffer 
pain.  A  nervous  system  is  given,  having  high  susceptibility  to 
pleasure,  and  the  liability  to  pain  is  incidental,  often  becoming 
a  means  of  protection.  We  doubtless  exaggerate  in  regard  to 
the  amount  and  degree  of  pain  which  the  animal  creation  en- 
dures. In  man  the  moral  anticipation  and  the  moral  effects  are 
peculiar  and  are  the  worst  elements  of  pain.  As  to  death,  which 
is  the  great  article  of  physical  evil,  as  far  as  that  is  limited  to  the 
merely  animal  world,  it  is  consistent  with  benevolence,  taking 
benevolence  to  have  respect  only  to  the  greatest  amount  of  hap- 
piness. A  succession  of  animals  gives  a  greater  amount  of  hap- 
piness than  one  animal  in  continued  existence. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  41 

2.  Moral  evil.     That  suffering  which  is  the  consequent  or 
punishment  of  sin  is  not  inconsistent  with  benevolence.     It  is 
demanded  by  benevolence.     Sin,  as  the  worst  thing  in  the  world, 
must  be  punished  by  the  next  worst,  which  is  pain.     Sin  is  the 
worst  thing,  and  the  only  way  in  which  a  stigma  can  be  attache*  1 
to  it  is  to  affix  the  next  worst  thing  to  it.     Just  as  happiness  in 
a  just  administration  is  connected  with  virtue  as  its  immediate 
concomitant,  so  should  suffering  be  with  sin.     Such  suffering,  as 
it  is  connected  with  transgression,  has  four  relations:  (a.)  It  is 
the  direct  expression  of  the  desert  of  sin.    (6.)  It  is  for  the  highest 
good,  the  end  of  public  justice — to  sustain  the  law  and  the  law- 
giver,    (c.)  Suffering  for  sin  in  a  state  of  probation  may  be  a 
means  of  reformation  to  the  sinner.     (<i.)  In  a  state  of  probation 
it  may  be  a  means  of  discipline  to  higher  holiness,  to  those  who 
are  already  partly  sanctified. 

3.  The  real  problem  or  difficulty  remains,  the  existence  of  sin 
itself.     All  forms  of  physical  evil  can  be  shown  to  be  consistent 
with  benevolence.     But  if  God  might  have  prevented  sin  in  a 
moral  system,  how  is  it  consistent  with  benevolence  for  Him  to 
allow  it?     There  are  several  theories  on  this  point. 

The  first  theory.  Sin  is  not  an  intrinsic  evil,  but  an  imper 
feet  state  of  development.  Sin  is  a  necessary  result  of  the  finite. 
It  is  the  imperfect  action  of  the  finite,  a  transition  stage  only, 
which  is  to  issue  in  the  highest  good.  It  is  a  negation,  i.  e.,  the 
sin  of  any  act  is  what  that  act  falls  short  of  being.  It  might  have 
been  by  so  much  better.  A  moral  being  might  love  God  with  all 
his  heart,  but  he  only  loves  his  fellow  men.  He  falls  short  of  ex- 
panding his  love  to  its  full  measure,  and  his  sin  is  that  deficiency. 
All  finite  beings  must  sin,  and  therefore  the  divine  benevolence 
might  allow  sin.  If  a  finite  world  was  to  be  created,  sin 
must  be  allowed.  This  is  the  general  view  of  Leibnitz  and  his 
school.— Objections  to  this  theory:  (a.)  It  is  in  conflict  with  our 
inherent  sense  of  sin  as  a  moral  evil.  The  disobedience  of  the 
divine  law  is  not  a  partial  obedience  of  that  law.  Sin  is  a  vio- 
lation of  that  which  is  holy  and  binding  upon  us.  It  is  not  a 
negation,  it  is  the  strongest  affirmation  of  self.  (b.)  Sin  is  not 
merely  the  choice  of  a  less  good,  but  such  a  choice  as  implies 


42  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

the  refusal  of  a  greater  good.  If  sin  were  simply  the  choice  of 
a  less  good,  the  whole  animal  creation  would  be  sinners,  because 
they  choose  lower  good,  and  they  would  be  sinners  in  propor- 
tion to  their  weakness  as  animals.  Sin  in  act  is  the  choice  of 
the  less,  knowing  the  greater,  (c.)  This  theory  does  not  show 
how  the  existence  of  sin  is  consistent  with  benevolence,  but 
merely  shows  how  the  existence  of  relative  imperfection  is  con- 
sistent with  benevolence.  No  one  doubts  this,  and  if  there  are 
different  orders  of  being,  there  must  be  relative  imperfections 
somewhere.  It  may  be  consistent  with  benevolence  to  inflict 
pain  for  the  sake  of  a  greater  good  in  the  process  of  education, 
to  stimulate  an  imperfect  being  to  the  proper  development  of  his 
powers.  In  order  to  teach  an  animal  to  do  something,  we  in- 
flict pain.  And  it  is  benevolence  on  the  whole  to  do  that,  if 
the  teaching  be  worth  anything;  but  that  does  not  show  how 
it  is  benevolent  to  make  a  man  morally  corrupt  for  the  good  of 
others.  (<£)  Kelative  imperfection  is  necessary,  but  sin  is  not, 
and  therefore  the  theory  cannot  hold. 

The  second  tJieory.  This  is  the  position  that  sin  is  the  nec- 
essary means  of  the  greatest  good,  though  in  itself  the  great- 
est of  evils.  This  has  been  attributed  to  several  New  England 
divines  of  the  older  Hopkinsian  school.  It  is  the  result  of  the 
divine  efficiency  scheme.  Those  who  hold  it  are  careful  to  say 
that  they  do  not  mean  that  sin  is  in  itself  a  good  or  that  it  is 
a  direct  means  of  good,  but  that  it  is  overruled  to  the  greater 
display  of  the  divine  goodness.  Sin  is  the  necessary  means  of 
the  greatest  good,  and  therefore  it  is  consistent  with  benevo- 
lence, because  benevolence  has  respect  to  the  highest  good. 
This  comes  up  for  discussion  afterward  in  another  connection.1 
We  mention  here  only  some  of  the  ambiguities  in  the  state- 
ment.— What  is  meant  by  the  greatest  good  ?  Is  it  happiness 
or  holiness,  or  happiness  in  holiness?  What  the  purport  of 
the  position  is,  depends  very  much  upon  the  answer  to  this 
question.  Then  what  does  the  term  necessary  mean?  It  is  used 
in  different  senses.  It  may  stand  for  a  metaphysical  necessity, 
so  that  sin  is  the  necessary  stage  in  the  progress  toward  the 
greatest  good,  and  in  this  sense  the  theory  would  be  the  same 

1  Page  147. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  43 

as  the  first.  Or,  necessary  may  mean  that  the  highest  good 
cannot  be  obtained  without  this,  that  it  is  a  necessary  condition  • 
the  sense  of  the  word  may  be  that  the  end  of  the  moral  system 
?ould  not  be  attained  without  sin,  that  God  could  not  manifest 
his  glory  perfectly  except  by  means  of,  or  on  occasion  of,  sin. 

The  third  theory.  That  sin  is  in  the  best  system  because 
it  is  the  necessary  incident  to  moral  agency.  God  could  not 
create  free  agents  and  prevent  all  sin  in  the  system.  The  ne- 
cessity comes  here,  not  from  the  relation  of  sin  to  the  highest 
good,  but  from  its  relation  to  freedom.  Freedom  is  such  a 
power  that  it  can  be  exerted  in  sinning  despite  omnipotence. 
God  could  not  prevent  all  sin  in  a  moral  system  from  the  na- 
ture of  free  agency.  Prevention  of  all  sin  under  the  circum- 
stances is  not  an  object  of  omnipotence,  any  more  than  altering 
the  relation  of  the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  to  two  right  angles. 
We  defer  the  discussion  of  this  theory  also.1 

The  fourth  statement  The  relation  of  the  existence  of  sin  to 
the  divine  benevolence  is  beyond  our  comprehension.  There  is 
clear  proof,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  benevolence  and  even  of  the 
grace  of  God,  and  on  the  other,  of  the  existence  of  sin.  We 
must  take  the  two  as  matters  of  fact,  and  not  allow  the  exist- 
ence of  sin  to  override  the  divine  benevolence.  To  solve  the 
problem  we  would  need  omniscience.2 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    DIVINE    VERACITY. 

This  is  not,  strictly  speaking,  an  attribute,  but  a  modification 
of  the  attributes  of  holiness  and  wisdom.  Yet  it  is  often  treated 
as  an  attribute.  Veracity  is  equivalent  to  the  truthfulness  of 
God,  the  certainty  that  He  will  be  true  in  declaring  what  He 
is  and  what  He  will  do.  Truth  generally  is  the  conformity  of 
declaration  or  representation  to  the  reality. 

1  Page  149. 

2  Miiller  says,  that  if   we  could  understand   sin  it  would  not  be   sin,  for  that 
would  imply  its  rationality,  whereas  it  is  irrational. 


44  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Proof  of  the  Divine  Veracity. 

1.  There  is  no  cause  or  motive  for  error  in  the  Supreme 
Being. 

2.  Scriptural  Proof:  Exod.  xxxiv.6;  Num.  xxiii.  19;  I&:a.  xxv.  1. 
The  Scriptural  usage  of  Truth,  as  applied  to  God,  implies  three 

things:  (1)  That  God  is  the  truth,  metaphysically,  as  to  his 
nature.  God  is  that  which  as  God  He  must  be:  1  John  v.  20; 
John  xvii.  3.  (2)  That  God  is  the  source  and  center  of  all 
truth.  (3)  In  the  sense  of  the  divine  veracity  or  truthfulness. 
On  this  point  two  or  three  questions  are  raised:  (a.)  Whether 
God  is  sincere  in  his  invitations  to  sinners  who  will  be  lost. 
The  invitations  are  actually  made  on  practicable  conditions,  and 
there  is  no  obstacle  to  their  acceptance  but  man's  depravity. 
(b.)  Whether  it  is  consistent  with  the  divine  veracity  to  threaten 
those  who  may  not  ultimately  be  punished.  All  such  threaten- 
ings  are  to  be  taken  as  penalties  attached  to  the  violation  of  law, 
and  if  anything  can  take  the  place  of  the  execution  of  penalties, 
there  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  veracity  in  such  substitution. 
The  great  end  to  be  answered  by  the, penalty  of  the  law  is  reached 
in  the  atonement.  The  end  of  the  law  and  of  the  penalty  is 
not  the  penalty  itself  or  suffering.  If  suffering  were  the  great 
end,  then  God  could  not  be  true  and  take  away  the  suffering. 
But  the  great  end  is  holiness,  and  the  suffering  is  merely  in 
order  to  that,  (c.)  Whether  it  is  consistent  with  the  divine 
truthfulness  to  say  that  God  repents,  etc.  This  has  already 
been  considered. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    DIVINE    JUSTICE. 

§  1.   General  Idea  of  the  Justice  of  God. 

The  word  justice  is  one  of  the  disputed  terms  in  the  theories 
ot  the  atonement  and  of  justification.  It  is  used  in  both  a  gen- 
eral and  a  specific  sense;  in  the  general  sense  as  equivalent  to 
holiness;  in  a  specific  sense,  as  in  distributive  justice,  for  example, 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  45 

where  it  means,  technically,  dealing  with  each  according  to  hia 
deserts.  Justice  is  not  benevolence,  though  benevolence  may 
require  it.  Benevolence,  used  in  a  partial  sense,  refers  to  happi- 
ness; and  justice,  used  in  a  partial  sense,  refers  to  desert.  It  is 
best  to  carry  both  up  into  a  higher  attribute,  public  justice,  holi- 
ness or  love.  Still,  public  justice  and  love  differ  in  this,  that 
love  expresses  the  attribute  of  God,  and  public  justice  its  mani- 
festation in  a  moral  government.  Holy  love  induces  God  to  in- 
stitute a  moral  system,  by  which  He  may  show  his  highest  glory 
and  secure  the  highest  good  of  his  creatures.  Justice  is  his 
mode  of  administering  that  system  by  his  moral  law,  so  as  to 
secure  its  ends,  by  treating  each  according  to  his  deserts,  yet 
each  in  relation  to  the  great  ends  of  the  system.  We  might 
show  by  citations  from  many  authors,  that  this  is  the  established 
meaning  of  distributive  justice. 

§  2.  Proofs  of  the  Divine  Justice. 

1.  God  as  perfect  must  be  just.     We  cannot  conceive  other 
wise  of  a  moral  Governor. 

2.  The  divine  justice  may  be  deduced  from  the  other  attri 
butes,  wisdom,  holiness,  and  love. 

3.  History  abounds  in  evidences  of  the  divine  justice. 

4.  The   Scriptures   recognize  and  assert   that  God  is  just 
2  Chron.  xix.  7;  Job  viii.  3,  xxxvii.  23;  Rom.  iii.  2G. 

• 

§  3.  Distinctions  in  respect  to  the  Divine  Justice. 

1.  Legislative,  by  which  is  meant,  God's  holiness  in  giving 
a  law  with  sanctions.     Its  requirements  are  holy,  its  sanctions 
are  rewards  and  punishments. 

2.  Executive  or  judicial  justice,  as  seen  in  God's  administer- 
ing moral  government  according  to  moral  law,  by  positive  re- 
wards  and   punishments.     There  must  be  in  it  rewards   and 
punishments  in  order  to  distinguish  a  moral  government  from 
a  physical,  and  law  from  advice.     By  these  God  shows  his  ap- 
proval of  holiness  and  disapproval  of  sin,  and  only  thus  secures 
the  end  of  a  moral  government.     This  is  sometimes  called  vin- 
dicatory justice. 


46  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

§  4.  Why  does  God  as  a  Moral  Governor  exercise  punitive 
Justice  ? 

There  are  four  theories:  (1)  Because  sin  is  essentially  ill-de- 
serving. (2)  To  reform.  (3)  To  deter.  (4)  From  the  interests 
of  general  justice. 

The  first  theory.  Sin  is  punished  because  it  is  essentially  ill- 
deserving,  (a.)  Sin  is  the  worst  thing  possible,  and  as  such  re- 
quires to  be  attended  by  evil,  the  next  worst  thing.  (6.)  Con- 
science asserts  the  desert  of  punishment.  In  him  who  sins  there 
is  a  sense  of  guilt  which  is  met  only  by  punishment,  (c.)  Our 
judgments  about  others  attest  the  same,  our  indignation,  for 
example,  at  great  injustice  or  cruelty.  The  moral  emotion  is 
instantaneous,  the  mind  pronounces  that  the  evil  act  deserves 
punishment,  (d.)  God  as  a  moral  governor  must  manifest  his 
hatred  of  sin  as  the  opposite  of  his  own  holiness,  and  to  do  this 
He  must  punish. 

The  second  theory.  That  the  end  of  punishment  is  to  reform. 
This  is  the  position  of  Pelagians,  Socinians,  and  Universalists. 
It  views  the  punishment  in  relation  to  the  culprit.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  punishment  has  incidentally  this  effect.  But 
this  cannot  be  the  sole  end,  for  if  it  were,  (a.)  It  would  be  op- 
posed to  the  moral  convictions  of  the  culprit  himself.  He  feels 
that  punishment  is  right  even  though  it  does  not  reform  him. 
(&.)  If  this  be  the  end,  the  end  is  not  answered,  there  are  many 
cases  where  punishment  does  not  reform,  (c.)  Punishment  could 
not  answer  the  end  of  reforming  unless  it  was  also  felt  to  be  right. 

The  third  theory.  That  the  chief  end  of  punishment  is  to 
deter  others.  This  views  the  punishment  in  relation  to  other 
culprits.  Deterring  others  is  also  an  incidental  end  of  punish- 
ment, but  is  not  the  chief  end,  for,  (a.)  It  is  against  our  moral 
convictions  as  to  justice  that  we  should  be  punished  simply  to 
keep  others  from  doing  wrong  when  we  do  not  deserve  pun- 
ishment ourselves.  (b.)  If  this  is  the  only  end  of  punishment, 
it  is  not  attained.  Unless  the  first  theory  be  true,  the  second 
and  third  lose  their  force. 

The  fourth  theory.  That  punishment  is  required  by  what  is 
called  general  justice  or  regard  for  the  general  good.  This  is 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  47 

ambiguous.  It  is  false  or  true  according  to  the  explanation  of 
it.  There  are  three  explanations  of  it.  (1)  The  public  good 
is  taken  to  be  happiness.  (2)  The  general  good  is  taken  to  be 
more  specific — to  reform  the  criminal  and  to  deter  others.  As 
thus  understood  the  position  comes  to  be  that  of  the  second  and 
third  theories.  (3)  The  public  good  is  understood  as  equiva- 
lent to  holiness,  and  thus  punishment  is  necessary  as  the  ex- 
pression of,  and  to  promote,  holiness. 

If  the  public  good  is  taken  in  the  first  sense,  happiness  is 
made  the  great  end  of  the  divine  system,  which  falls  to  be  con- 
sidered by  and  by.  If  it  be  said  it  is  the  highest  happiness 
which  is  intended,  there  is  then  the  doubt  as  to  what  the  highest 
happiness  means.  If  the  happiness  is  such  as  is  found  only  in 
holiness,  another  form  of  the  theory  is  presented. — The  third 
form  above  is  the  true  statement,  viz.,  punishment  is  required 
by  public  justice,  as  the  expression  of,  and  to  promote,  holiness. 
Punishment  is  needful  to  express  the  displeasure  of  a  holy  God 
against  sin  as  ill-deserving,  and  also  to  preserve  the  love  of 
holiness  and  hatred  of  sin  in  others,  (a.)  This  unites  the  two 
views  of  the  inherent  ill-desert  of  sin  and  the  final  ends  of  the 
whole  system.  Sin  is  punished  because  it  is  ill-deserving  and 
also  to  promote  the  great  end  of  the  system,  or  holiness,  (b.) 
This  view  does  not  make  the  punishment  of  sin  to  be  the  great 
end  of  the  system,  but  holiness,  the  maintenance  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  righteousness.  According  to  the  reasoning  of  some  in 
respect  to  the  first  theory,  it  would  seem  that  the  great  end  of 
the  system  was  reached  by  punishment,  but  really  punishment 
is  inflicted  in  order  that  holiness  may  be  maintained,  (c.)  This 
view  will  of  course  allow  that  punishment  may  in  any  case  be  re- 
mitted, if  the  end  can  be  gained  in  some  other  way.  Whereas, 
taking  the  first  view  in  its  strictness,  that  sin  is  punished  because 
it  is  essentially  ill-deserving  and  for  that  sole  reason,  then  it  fol- 
lows that  sin  must  be  punished  at  any  rate,  and  then  there  can 
be  no  atonement,  or  else  it  must  be  a  commercial  atonement, 
a  quid  pro  quo,  an  exact  equivalent  to  the  same  amount  of 
punishment. 


48  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


BOOK   II. 

THE  TRINITY,    OR   GOD  AS  KNOWN  IN  TEE  WORK   OP 
REDEMPTION. 


"JEv  rpiddt  rj  SEohoyia  rs^eia  stiri'."—  ATHANASIUS. 
,"  Ubi  amor,  ibi  Triniias."  —  AUGUSTINE. 

PRELIMINARY   REMARKS. 

1.  The  specific  character  of  the  Christian  doctrine  respecting 
God  is,  that  He  has  become  known  to  man  in  connection  with 
the  work  of  Redemption,   as  Father,   Son,  and   Spirit;  so  that 
all  our  knowledge   of  God  may  be  reduced   to   the  formula: 
God  =  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 

2.  The  center  and  source  of  our  knowledge  respecting  the 
Trinity  is  to  be  found  in  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  in  his  revela- 
tion of  God  to  man.     His  person  is  set  forth  as  distinct  from  that 
of  the  Father  :  He  also  sends  the  Spirit. 

3.  The   primary   Scriptural   aspect   of  the   doctrine   of  the 
Trinity  is  not  speculative  but  practical.     In  the  Scriptures  it  is 
a  great  truth,  underlying  the  whole  Christian  revelation  :  God 
as  Father,  the  source  of  Redemption  ;  God  as  Son,  achieving  Re- 
demption; God  as  the  Holy  Spirit,  applying  the  Redemption  to 
man.     It  is  not  a  barren,  abstract  truth,  but  vital,  interwoven 
with  the  whole  Christian  economy.     This  holds  true,  whatever 
difficulties  may  be  found  in  the  formal  statement  of  the  doctrine. 
The  doctrine  has  always  been  vital  in  Christendom,  the  source 
of  the  life  and  power  of  Christianity.     We  find  God  in  the  plan, 
God  in  the  work,  God  in  the  carrying  into  execution  of  the 
economy  of  Redemption.     The  whole  revelation  of  God  ad  extra, 
the  divine  economy  ad  extra,  is  in  this  Trinitarian  plan. 

Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  truth  than  the  representa- 
tion of  the  Trinity  as  a  mere  abstract  doctrine  about  the  interior 
of  God,  with  no  vitality.1 

4  The  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God,  taken  in  the  sense  that 
God  is  a  single  person,  like  a  human  person,  having  a  single, 
circumscribed  personality,  is  no  more  natural,  and  no  more 
1  See  Dr.  Bushnell,  in  New  Englancler,  1854. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.  49 

rational  in  itself,  than  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  God  is  the 
only  being;  there  is  only  one  such  being — that  is  the  truth,  and 
the  whole  of  the  truth  on  this  point.  But  it  is  in  itself  really  no 
easier  to  conceive  of  God  as  one  person,  single  I,  than  as  three 
persons,  and  no  more  rational.  It  is  anthropomorphic  as  truly 
as  some  popular  misrepresentations  of  the  Trinity  are  said  to  be 
tritheistic. 

5.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  being  one  respecting  the  in- 
terior economy,  as  well  as  the  mode  of  revelation,  of  the  Godhead, 
we  must  naturally  expect  that  it  will  be  mysterious,  in  the  sense 
that  we  cannot  grasp  it,  conceive  of  it  definitely,  as  we  do  of 
things  and  beings  finite  and  limited.     It  is  a  mystery,  not  an 
absurdity;  an  absurdity  is  a  statement  v^hich  involves  what  is 
self-contradictory  to  conception.     It  is  a  mystery,  not  an  enig- 
ma; for  an  enigma  is  something  that  puzzles  the  ingenuity,  of 
which  there  is  supposed,  however,  to  be  a  definite  s©lution.     A 
mystery  is  somewhat,  which  is  partly  intelligible  and  partly 
unintelligible — intelligible  in  many  of  its  relations  and  modes 
of  manifestation,  unintelligible  in  its  interior  nature.     Athana- 
sius  hence  well  says,  "this  doctrine  is  not  an  enigma,  but  a 
divine  mystery."     We  may  know  that  it  is,  but  not  what  it  is. 
A  mystery,  again,  is,  in  the  Scriptural  usage,  some  revealed  fact 
respecting  God  and  the  divine  agency,  which  we  can  compre- 
hend so  far  as  it  is  revealed — which  we  can  believe  on  sufficient 
testimony,  but  which  we  cannot  grasp  with  the  understanding. 

The  doctrine  does  not  assert  that  God  is  one  and  three  in 
the  same  sense,  "which  one  consideration,"  says  Dr.  South, 
"  well  weighed,  will  blunt  the  edge  of  all  assaults  against  this 
article."  How  far  we  may  even  find  something  rational  in  it, 
we  shall  consider. 

6.  For  the  Trinity  there  is  a  strong  preliminary  argument  in 
the  fact  that  in  some  form  it  has  always  been  confessed  by  the 
Christian  Church,  and  that  all  that  has  opposed  it  has  been 
thrown  off.     When  it  has  been  abandoned,  other  chief  articles, 
as  the  atonement,  regeneration,  etc.,  have  almost  always  fol- 
lowed it,  by  a  logical  necessity;  as  when  one  draws  the  wire 
from  a  necklace  of  gems,  the  gems  all  fall  asunder.     It  is  also 


50  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

true  that  it  has  been  the  subject  of  many  prolonged  controversies 
and  various  modes  of  statement.  But  the  great  result  of  these 
has  been  to  bring  out  the  doctrine  in  its  various  aspects,  and 
especially  as  interwoven  with  the  scheme  of  Redemption. 

7.  The  leading  formula  of  the  doctrine  was  adopted  to  guard 
against  three  errors:  Tritheism,  Sabellianism,  Arianism. 

Outline  of  the  Course  on  the  Trinity. 

PROP.  L— The  Scriptures  represent  God  as  one,  yet  they  ascribe  Divinity  to 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost. 

PROP.  II.— The  Distinctions  of  the  Godhead  set  forth  here  are  not  confined  to 
the  revelation  of  God,  but  are  internal. 

PROP.  III.  — The  existence  of  such  personal  distinctions  in  the  Godhead  is  not 
contrary  to  reason,  though  it  involves  a  mystery. 

PBOP.  IV. — The  history  of  theology  and  of  philosophy  tends  to  confirm  the 
Christian  faith  in  the  Trinity. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE   MANIFESTED   TRINITY. 

First  Proposition.  While  representing  God  as  one,  the 
Scriptures  also  ascribe  divinity  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

Course  of  the  Argument. 

L— That  God  is  one— unity  is  ascribed  to  God. 
n. — That  the  Father  is  divine. 
HL—  That  the  Son  is  divine. 
IV.— That  the  Holy  Spirit  is  divine. 

V. — That  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  are  classed  together,  separately  from 
all  other  beings.    The  Trinitarian  texts. 

§  1.  That  God  is  one. 

See  discussion  of  the  Divine  Unity. 

Scripture  Proof: 

Exodus  xx.  3.     "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me.'* 

Deut.  iv.  35.  "  Unto  thee  it  was  shewed,  that  thou  mightest 
know  that  the  Lord  He  is  God;  there  is  none  else  beside  Him." 

Deut  vi.  4  "Hear,  0  Israel:  The  Lord  our  God  is  one 
Lord." 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  51 

Mark  xii.  29.  "  And  Jesus  answered  him,  The  first  of  all 
the  commandments  is,  Hear,  0  Israel:  The  Lord  our  God  is  one 
Lord." 

1  Cor.  viii.  4.  "We  know  that  an  idol  is  nothing  in  the 
world,  and  that  there  is  none  other  God  but  one."  (Referring 
to  Deut.  iv.  39.  "  Know  therefore  this  day,  and  consider  it  in 
thine  heart,  that  the  Lord  He  is  God  in  heaven  above,  and  upon 
the  earth  beneath:  there  is  none  else.") 

Eph.  iv.  6.  "  One  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all, 
and  through  all,  and  in  you  all." 

1  Tim.  i.  17.     "The  only  [wise]  God." 

§  2.   That  the  FatJier  is  divine  and  a  distinct  Person. 

This  is  not  contested. 

(a.)  The  word  Father  is  used  in  the  Scriptures  in  a  two- 
fold sense  and  relation  in  respect  to  the  Godhead :  sometimes  aa 
equivalent  to  God,  sometimes  of  the  first  person  in  the  Trinity. 

Of  passages  where  the  word  is  used  as  equivalent  to  God, 
and  not  implying  personal  distinctions,  there  may  be  mentioned: 

In  the  Lord's  prayer:  "  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven." 

Deut.  xxxii.  6.  "Is  not  He  thy  father  that  hath  bought 
thee?" 

Isa.  Ixiii.  16.  "  Doubtless  thou  art  our  Father,  though  Abra- 
ham be  ignorant  of  us Thou,  O  Lord,  art  our  Father, 

our  Redeemer." 

Ps.  ciii.  13.     "  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children." 

(b.)  Passages  in  which  the  word  is  applied  to  God  in  con- 
trast with  Christ,  (yet  not  with  direct  respect  to  their  personal 
relations  to  each  other  as  Father  and  Son,  even  in  the  revelation). 

1  Cor.  viii.  6.  "  To  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the  Father,  of 
whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  Him ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  Him."  This  is  spoken  of 
Christ,  not  in  his  internal,  but,  so  to  speak,  external  relation  to 
the  Father,  (a  statement  of  course  not  inconsistent  with  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ).  The  word  Father  here  means  not  the  whole 
Godhead,  but  the  unrevealed. 

Gal.  i.  3,  4.     "  Grace  be  to  you,  and  peace,  from  God  the 


52  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Father  and  from  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  gave  himself  foi 
our  sins,  ....  according  to  the  will  of  God  and  our  Father.' 
(The  latter  expression  is  a  Hebraism,  and  for  the  relative). 

John  xvii.  3.  "  That  they  might  know  thee  the  only  true 
God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent." 

Eph.  iv.  5,  6.  "  One  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God 
and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in 
you  all." 

(c.)  There  are  other  passages  where  the  word  is  used  as  de- 
noting a  special  relation  to  Christ  as  Son,  to  Christ  in  his  office 
of  Redeemer. 

Eom.  xv.  6.  "That  ye  may  with  one  mind  and  one  mouth 
glorify  God,  even  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

2  Cor.  xi.  31.  "The  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  which  is  blessed  for  evermore,  knoweth  that  1  lie  not." 

Eph.  i.  3.  "  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  who  hath  blessed  us  with  all  spiritual  blessings  in  hea- 
venly places  in  Christ." 

John  v.  18.  The  complaint  of  the  Jews  because  Christ  had 
"  said  also  that  God  was  his  Father,  making  himself  equal  with 
God." 

John  v.  23.  Christ's  declaration  of  the  design  of  God,  "  that 
all  men  should  honor  the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father." 

(d.)  A  class  of  passages  may  also  be  referred  to,  in  which  a 
still  more  intimate  relation  seems  to  be  implied,  (not  now  to 
discuss  what  relation,  but  deferring  the  question  until  the  Sonship 
is  considered). 

John  xvii.  1.  "Father,  the  hour  is  come:  glorify  thy  Son, 
that  thy  Son  also  may  glorify  thee." 

John  x.  30.     "  I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

NOTE. — That  form  of  the  Sabellian  hypothesis,  which  makes  the  Father  one 
of  the  modes  of  manifestation  of  the  hidden  God, '  has  no  countenance  in  Scrip- 
ture. It  is  inconceivable.  There  is  no  Father  manifested;  it  is  God  the  Father 
— Father  being  the  perfect  equivalent  of  God. 

1  This  view  says  that  the  hidden,  unrevealed,  God  and  the  Logos  are  from 
eternity,  but  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  modes  of  manifestation  of  that 
hidden  God. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  53 

John  x.  15.  "As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  and  I  know  the 
Father." 

§  3.   That  the  Son  is  divine  and  a  distinct  Person  from  the  Father. 
The  argument  for  this  is  cumulative,  derived  from  a  variety 
of  independent  assertions  of  the  Scriptures. 

(A.)  Christ  was  pre-existent.  He  existed  as  a  distinct  per- 
sonal being  before  He  came  into  the  world.  "Manhood  was 
not  his  original  character." 

(a.)  The  following  passages  have  special  force,  being  Christ's 
own  testimony: 

John  iii.  13.  "  No  man  hath  ascended  up  to  heaven  but  He 
that  came  down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man,"  etc. 

John  vi.  38.  "  I  came  down  from  heaven,  not  to  do  my  own 
will." 

John  vi.  62.  "  What  and  if  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  as- 
cend up  where  He  was  before  V  " 

John  xvii.  5.  "  Glorify  thou  me  with  thine  own  self  with 
the  glory  which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was." 

John  viii.  58.  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Before  Abra- 
ham was,  I  am."  (Socinus  would  interpret  this,  Before  Abraham 
can  be  Abraham,  1  must  be  Messiah,  i.  e.,  in  the  decree  of  God. 
The  Jews  interpreted  the  verse  before  differently,  saying,  "Thou 
art  not  yet  fifty  years  old,  and  hast  thou  seen  Abraham  ?  ") 

(b.)  Another  class  of  passages  embraces  such  as  these: 

1  Cor.  xv.  47.     "The  second  man  is  [the  Lord]  from  heaven. ' 

Gal.  iv.  4.  "  When  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come,  God 
sent  forth  his  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law  " 

Col.  i.  17.  He  is  before  all  things  and  by  Him  all  things 
consist." 

John  i.  1,  and  3.  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word."  "  All 
things  were  made  by  Him." 

(c.)  There  is  a  class  of  texts  which  imply  a  change  in  Christ's 
condition,  through  his  Incarnation. 

John  i.  14.     "  The  Word  was  made  flesh." 

Phil.  ii.  6,  7.      "  Who  being  in  the  form  of  God made 


54  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

himself  of  no  reputation."  (The  expression  "  form  of  God  "  proves 
pre-existence.  "Form  of  God"  could  not  be  used  for  mere 
endowments.) 

(£.)  Christ  was  not  merely  pre-existent  (and  superangelie, 
Heb.  i.  4,  5,  6;  Rev.  v.  11),  but  He  was  the  first  of  all  beings  ex* 
cepting  the  Father. 

John  iii.  31.     "  He  that  cometh  from  above  is  above  all." 
Col.  i.  15.     "  Who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  first- 
born of  every  creature." 

Col.  i.  18.     "  Who  is  the  beginning,  the  firstborn  from  the 
dead;  that  in  all  things  He  might  have  the  pre-eminence." 
Rev.  i.  5.     "  The  prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth." 
Rev.  iii.  14.     "  The  beginning  of  the  creation  of  God." 
Matt.  xi.  27.    "  All  things  are  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father." 
Matt,  xxviii.  18.     "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven 
and  in  earth." 

John  x.  15.  "As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  and  I  know  the 
Father." 

Col.  i.  15, 17.  "  Who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God."  "  And 
He  is  before  all  things."  These  and  many  similar  passages  show 
that  Christ  is  the  first  being  in  the  universe,  next  the  Father. 

((7.)  Christ  was  not  only  pre-existent,  superangelie,  next  the 
Father,  but  also  the  Creator  of  the  universe.1 

John  i.  3.     "All  things  were  made  by  Him,"  dt  avrov  tyerero 

Heb.  i.  10.  "Thou,  Lord,  in  the  beginning  hast  laid  the 
foundation  of'the  earth;  and  the  heavens  are  the  works  of  thine 
hands." 

Col.  i.  16.  "  For  by  Him  (kv  avr&)  were  all  things  created 

(kKTi<5$ri) all  things  were  created  by  Him  and  for  Him  " 

(rd  TtOLVToc  dt  avrovxai  £/?  avrov  exrttiraa). 

As  to  the  force  of  this  argument  we  remark: 

1.  Creation  is  an  act  of  omnipotence;  it  is  inconceivable  that 

•  "The  Christian  Cosmos:  the  Son  of  God  the  Revealed  Creator,"  by  E.  W. 
Grinfield,  London,  1857,  is  full  and  good  on  the  Biblical  teaching,  the  Testimony 
of  the  Church,  and  the  Bearings  of  the  Doctrine. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  55 

it  should  be  delegated;  if  anything  implies  omnipotence,  crea- 
tion does. 

2.  Creation  is  expressly  attributed  to  God,  hence  Christ  is 
God. 

Gen.  i.  1.     "  In  the  beginning  God  created." 
Isa.  xliv.  24.     "  I  am  the  Lord  that  maketh  all  things." 
Heb.  iii.  4.     "  For  every  house  is  builded  by  some  man,  but 
He  that  built  all  things  is  God." 

3.  It  is  no  objection  that  in  John  i.  3,  di  avrov  is  used  (in 
Col.  i.  16,  it  is  er  avrcp),  for  in  Kom.  xi.  36,  of  God  the  Father 
it  is  said  "all  things"  di  avrov  \  and  of  Him  also  in  Heb.  ii.  10, 
dt  ov,  '*  through  whom  are  all  things." 

4.  Nor  can  an  objection  be  drawn  from  the  passages  which 
ascribe  instrumentality  to  the  Son  in  creation. 

Heb.  i.  2.     "By  whom  also  He  made  the  worlds." 

This  is  not  inconsistent  with  proper  divinity:  we  infer  that 

only  through  a  divine  being  could  such  a  work  be  accomplished 

—  for  Christ  is  elsewhere  described  as  divine. 


Christ  is  not  only  pre-existent,  superangelic,  next  the 
Father,  Creator,  but  other  incommunicable  divine  attributes 
(or  those  we  must  conceive  of  as  such)  are  ascribed  to  Him. 

These  attributes  are  not  merely  such  as  imply  the  perfection 
of  any  being  after  his  kind,  but  those  which  imply  divinity.1 

(a.)  Omnipotence. 

Is.  ix.  6.     "  His  name  shall  be  called  the  mighty  God." 

Phil.  iii.  21.  "The  working  whereby  He  is  able  to  subdue 
oven  all  things  unto  himself."  (See  also  1  Cor.  xv.  26.  "The 
last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death.") 

Heb.  i.  3.    "Upholding  all  things  by  the  word  of  his  power.  w 

Rev.  i.  8.     "  I  am  ....  the  Almighty." 

(b.)  Omnipresence. 

Heb.  i.  3,  see  above.     (Ubiquity.) 

Matt,  xxviii.  20.     "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway." 

(c.)  Eternity. 

John  i.  1.     "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word." 

'  The  argument  is:  having  divine  attributes,  He  must  be  divine. 


56  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Rev.  i.  8.     "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega." 

17.  "  I  am  the  first  and  the  last." 

18.  "  I  am  He  that  liveth." 

Rev.  xxii.  13.     "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega." 

Compare  Is.  xliv.  6.  "I  am  the  first  and  the  last:  and  beside 
me  there  is  no  God." 

(d.)  Omniscience. 

As  to  Christ's  superhuman  knowledge: 

Compare  Luke  ii.  47:  "And  all  that  heard  Him  were  aston- 
ished at  his  understanding  and  answers,"  with  Isa.  xl.  2:  "And 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  Him,  the  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  understanding." 

John  ii.  24.     "He  knew  all  men" — "what  was  in  man." 

Matt.  xi.  27.  "Neither  knoweth  any  man  the  Father  save 
the  Son." 

John  xxi.  17.     "  Lord,  tliou  knowest  all  things." 

Rev.  ii.  23.  "I  am  He  which  searcheth  the  reins  and  hearts." 
(Compare  Jer.  xvii.  10.  "I  the  Lord  search  the  heart,  I  try  the 
reins."  Acts  i.  24.  "Thou,  Lord,  which  knowest  the  hearts 
of  all  men.") 

Two  confirmatory  grounds  of  argument  as  to  Christ's  posses- 
sion of  divine  attributes. 

1.  From  his  working  of  miracles — in  a  peculiar  way:  (a.)  As 
proof  of  his  messiahship,  and  Messiah  is  divine;  (&.)  In  his  own 
name  and  for  his  own  glory — different  from  the  disciples,  who 
wrought  in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  by  power  received  from  Him. 

2.  The  last  judgment  is  to  be  conducted  by  Christ,  which 
implies  a  divine  position  and  authority  together  with  the  attri- 
bute of  omniscience.1 

(E.)  Christ  is  not  merely  pre-existent,  above  all,  Creator,  pos- 
sessor of  divine  attributes,  but  the  divine  name  is  applied  to 
Him  as  to  no  other  being  in  the  Scriptures,  excepting  the  Fa- 
ther, and  in  a  way  which  implies  supreme  divinity. 

1  In  the  Christ.  Exam.,  Nov.  '57,.  the  judgment  is  resolved  into  the  idea  of 
retribution  as  centering  in  Christ.  The  older  Unitarians  did  n3t  allow  that  the 
Scriptures  taught  these  things  of  Christ,  but  the  younger  allow  them  and  say 
they  are  metaphorical. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  57 

The  passages  in  which  Christ  is  called  God: 

Ps.  xlv.  8;  Ps.  cii.  24,  25,  compared  with  Heb.  i.  8,  10;  Acts 
xx.  28;  Rom.  ix.  5;  Eph.  v.  5;  2  Thess.  i.  12;  Titus  ii.  13;  2  Pet. 
i  1 ;  John  i.  1 ;  1  John  v.  20. 

A  general  objection  to  the  whole  argument  under  this  head 
is  that  there  are  cases  where  the  name  "  God  "  is  applied  to  in- 
feriors. As  Exod.  vii.  1,  "Jehovah  said  to  Moses,  See,  I  have 
made  thee  a  god  (Elohim)  to  Pharaoh";  Ps.  Ixxxii.  6,  "I  have 
said  ye  are  gods,  and  all  of  you  children  of  the  Most  High" 
(Elohim  used  of  magistrates). 

But,  in  these  cases  the  context  decides.  Besides  the  term  is 
Elohim  (the  appellation  rather  than  the  most  proper  name  of 
God),  while  "  Jehovah  "  is  expressly  applied  to  Christ. 

(a.)  The  first  class  of  passages,  showing  the  direct  use  of  the 
name,  God. 

(The  consideration  of  John  i.  1  is  postponed.) 

1  John  v.  20.  "This  is  the  true  God  and  eternal  life."  The 
passage  has  immediate  reference  to  Christ.  "  The  eternal  life," 
in  John's  usage,  relates  to  Christ,  and  the  reference  here  is  the 
same  for  the  true  God  as  for  the  eternal  life. 

Rom.  ix.  5.  "  Whose  are  the  fathers,  and  of  whom  as  con- 
cerning the  flesh  Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God  blessed  for- 
ever." All  the  MSS.  and  ancient  versions  have  it  thus:  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  last  century,  it  was  proposed  to  alter  to: 
"Who  is  over  all:  God  be  blessed  forever."  But  (1)  this  was 
never  heard  of  until  so  late;  (2)  in  the  Greek,  in  all  regular  dox- 
ologies,  "blessed"  comes  first;  (3)  we  might,  by  punctuation, 
alter  any  other  passage  just  as  well. 

Heb.  i.  8,  9.  "  But  unto  the  Son  He  saith,  Thy  throne,  0  God, 
is  for  ever  and  ever .  .  .  therefore  God,  even  thy  God,  hath  anointed 
thee."  (Cf.  Ps.  xlv.  6,  7.)  Some  render:  "God  is  thy  throne," 
but  against  usage  and  destroying  the  argument,  for  it  supposes 
"  the  throne  "  to  be  used  as  a  support,  which  is  not  warranted. 
"  Thy  God  "  brings  to  view  the  relation  of'the  Son  to  the  Father, 
either  as  official  or  internal. 

John  xx.  28.  "Thomas  said  ...  My  Lord  and  my  God."  Not 
"mere  excitement  of  feeling/' 


58  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Acts  xx.  28.  "  The  church  of  God  which  He  hath  purchased 
with  his  own  blood." 

John  i.  18.  For  "the  only  begotten  Son"  it  is  most  probable 
"  the  only  begotten  God  "  should  be  read. 

1  Pet.  iii.  15.  "Sanctify  the  Lord  Christ"  (instead  of  "the 
Lord  God")  "in  your  hearts."  Cf.  Is.  viii.  13,  "Sanctify  the 
Lord  of  hosts  himself." 

(6.)  The  second  class  of  passages:  those  in  which  the  name 
of  the  supreme  deity  in  the  Old  Testament  is  ascribed  to  Christ 
in  the  New  Testament. 

Is.  vi.  1.  "  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died  I  saw  also  the 
Lord  ....  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his  train  filled  the  temple." 

John  xii.  37-41.  "  These  things  said  Esaias,  when  (because) 
he  saw  his  glory,  ({.  e.,  Christ's,  see  verse  37,  and  seq.,)  and 
spake  of  Him." 

Ps.  cii.  25.  "Of  old  hast  thou  ("My  God,"  [Eli]  verse  24,) 
laid  the  foundation  of  the  earth :  and  the  heavens  are  the  work 
of  thy  hands." 

Heb.  i.  10.  "And,  thou,  Lord  (verse  8,  "unto  the  Son  He 
saith")  "in  the  beginning  hast  laid,"  etc. 

Is.  vii.  14.  "Behold,  a  virgin  shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  son, 
and  shall  call  his  name  Immanuel "  (El). 

Matt.  i.  21.  "And  she  shall  bring  forth  a  son,  and  thou 
shalt  call  his  name  JESUS ;  for  He  shall  save  his  people  from 
their  sins." 

Is.  ix.  6.  "  For  unto  us  a  child  is*  born  ....  and  his  name 
shall  be  called  ....  the  mighty  God"  (El). 

That  the  New  Testament  ascribes  the  whole  of  what  is 
said  in  Is.  ix.  1-7  to  Christ  is  seen  by  comparing  Is.  ix.  1,  2, 
with  Matt.  iv.  16,  Eph.  v.  8,  14;  Is.  ix.  6,  first  clause,  with  Luke 
ii.  11,  second  clause  with  John  iii.  16,  last  clause  with  Eph.  ii.  14, 
and  the  expression  "the  mighty  God"  with  Titus  [ii.  13: 
"Looking  for  that  blessed  hope,  and  the  glorious  appearing  of 
the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 

Is.  xl.  3.  "The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness, 
Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord"  (Jehovah). 

John  i.  23.     "  He  said,  I  am  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  59 

wilderness,  Make  straight  the  way  of  the  Lord,  as  said  the 
prophet  Esaias."  (Cf.  John  iii.  28,  and  Mai.  iii.  1.  "The 
Lord  whom  ye  seek.") 

(c  )  The  third  class  of  passages:  those  in  which  there  is 
an  indirect  use  of  the  name  of  God,  or  of  expressions  which 
imply  entire  divinity.  These  heighten  the  incidental  effect 
of  the  argument. 

Phil.  ii.  6-8.     "Who,  being  in  the  form   (j*op<py)  of  God." 

The  form  of  God  (uopcpr),  in  distinction  from  6x.fina,  or  the 
outward  and  changing)  means,  the  real  nature,  the  divine 
attributes,  the  aggregate  of  the  "distinctive  qualities," — so 
from  Aristotle  down;  dp-nay jj,6s  is  not  "  robbery"  (which  would 
directly  affirm  Christ's  divinity),  but  =  ro  ap7tayjua=  "a  prize" 
("spoil") — i.  e.,  a  treasure  to  be  seized.  Still  it  implies  di- 
vinity, for  (Lightfoot,  Comm.  on  Phil.,  1868,)  "How  could  it 
be  a  sign  of  humility  in  our  Lord  not  to  assert  his  equality 
with  God,  if  He  were  not  divine  ?  " l 

Heb.  i.  3.  "  Who  being  the  brightness  of  his  glory  and 
the  express  image  of  his  person." 

John  v.  18.  "Because  he  had  not  only  broken  the  Sabbath, 
but  said  also  that  God  was  his  Father,  making  himself  equal 
with  God." 

(It  is  objected  that  verse  19  reads:  "The  Son  can  do  noth- 
ing of  himself,  but  what  He  seeth  the  Father  do:"  but  the  mean- 
ing is,  Not  apart  from  or  independently  of  God,  but  in  perfect 
concurrence  with  and  "subordination"  to  Him). 

John  x.  33.  "For  a  good  work  we  stone  thee  not;  but 
for  blasphemy;  and  because  that  thou,  being  a  man,  makest 
thyself  God." 

John  xix.  7.  "We  have  a  law,  and  by  our  law  he  ought 
to  die,  because  he  made  himself  the  Son  of  God." 

Upon   the  three  passages  last  cited  this  remark  is  to  be 


i  So  Dorner  (Jahrb.  f.  d.  Theol.):  "Though  in  and  of  himself  having  the 
divine  form,  he  yet  did  not  look  at  equality  with  God  (such  as  his  whole  person 
was  destined  for  or  to)  [with  a  view  to]  robbery  (as  to  be  gained  by  violence) 
but  He  humbled  himself,"  ete. 


60  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

made-.  "If  Jesus  was  not  God,  he  was  guilty  of  blaspnemy, 
and  the  Jews  were  right  in  seeking  to  put  Him  to  death." 

(d.)  There  are  passages,  implying  Christ's  entire  community 
of  action  and  purpose  with  God,  which  are  best  explained  by 
the  Saviour's  divinity. 

John  v.  19.  "The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  himself."  (See 
above. ) 

John  xvii.  10.  "And  all  mine  are  thine,  and  thine  are 
mine." 

John  v.  17.     "My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work." 

John  x.  30.     "  I  and  my  Father  are  one." 

(e.)  There  are  passages  such  as  those  which  follow,  in  which 
the  term  "God"  is,  on  the  basis  of  the  previous  citations,  most 
naturally  applied  to  Christ. 

Eph.  v.  5.  "  Nor  covetous  man,  who  is  an  idolater,  hath 
any  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God  "  (where 
"  even  of  God  "  is  most  natural). 

Tit.  ii.  13.  "The  glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God  and 
our  Saviour  (there  should  be  a  comma  after  Saviour,  "ap- 
pearing of  our  great  God  and  Saviour",)  Jesus  Christ." 

2  Pet.  i.  1.  "Through  the  righteousness  of  God  and  (even) 
our  Saviour  (Saviour,)  Jesus  Christ." 

2  Tim.  iv.  1.  "I  charge  thee  therefore  before  God,  and 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ"  (before  God  even  Christ  Jesus). 

Luke  i.  16.  "  And  many  of  the  children  of  Israel  shall  He 
turn  to  the  Lord  their  God."  (Proof;  verse  17,  "And  he 
shall  go  before  Sim") 

Col.  ii.  9.  "For  in  Him  dwelleth  all  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  bodily." 

(F.)  Christ  is  exhibited  in  the  Scriptures  not  merely  as 
pre-existent,  above  all,  Creator,  possessor  of  divine  attributes, 
and  bearer  of  the  divine  names,  but  also  as  the  object  of  re- 
ligious worship. 

The  force  of  this  additional  argument  is  seen  from  a  com- 
parison of  passages. 

Worship  is  to  be  paid  only  to  God :  the  Son  is  worshiped. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  61 

Matt.  iv.  10.  "Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and 
Him  only  shalt  thou  serve." 

Heb.   i.   6.     "Let  all  the  angels  of  God  worship  Him." 

Exod.  jx.  3.     "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me." 

John  v.  23.  "  That  all  men  should  honor  the  Son,  even  as 
they  honor  the  Father." 

Is.  xlv.  5.     "  No  God  beside  me." 

Heb.  i.  8.     "Thy  throne,  0  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever." 

Is.  xliv.  8.  "Is  there  a  God  beside  me?  yea,  there  is  no 
God." 

John  i.  1.     "The  Word  was  God." 

Eesult  of  such  comparisons,  ( Water  land ):  (1)  From  divine 
worship  all  beings  are  to  be  excluded  excepting  God;  (2)  Christ 
not  being  excluded,  must  be  God. 

Other  passages: 

Heb.  i.  6.  "  Let  all  the  angels  of  God  worship  Him."  The 
word  for  "worship"  is  Ttpo6Kvvrj6dTGa6a.v\  but  it  is  the  same  as 
in  Matt.  iv.  10,  "Thou  shalt  worship  (rfpodnvy^ei^)  the  Lord 
thy  God."  (In  Ps.  xcvii.  7,  to  which  Heb.  i.  6  probably  refers, 
the  command  "  worship  Him  all  ye  gods "  [ElohimJ  is  pre- 
ceded by  the  denunciation :  "  Confounded  be  all  they  that  serve 
graven  images,  that  boast  themselves  of  idols.") 

Phil.  ii.  10.  "That  at  the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  should 
bow  ....  and  every  tongue  confess,"  etc.  Here  He  is  wor- 
shiped by  the  adoring  universe. 

2  Tim.  iv.  18.     "To  whom  be  glory  for  ever  and  ever." 

2  Pet.  iii.  18.     "  To  Him  be  glory  both  now  and  for  ever." 

Rev.  v.  13.  "  And  every  creature heard  I  saying, 

Blessing  and  honor  and  glory  and  power  be  unto  Him  that 
sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb  for  ever  and  ever." 

The  apostles  and  primitive  martyrs  worshiped  Christ. 

Luke  xxiv.  51,  52.  "  He  was  parted  from  them,  and  carried 
up  into  heaven,  And  they  worshiped  Him." 

Acts  vii.  59,  60.  "And  they  stoned  Stephen,  calling  upon 

[the  Lord],  and  saying,  Lord  Jesus  receive  my  spirit 

Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge." 

2  Cor.  xii.  8.     "  For  this  thing  I  besought  the  Lord  thrice 


(52  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

that  it  might  depart  from  me."  Who  "the  Lord"  is,  is  seen  in 
the  next  verse:  "Most  gladly  therefore  will  I  rather  glory  in 
my  infirmities,  that  the  power  of  Christ  may  rest  upon  me." 

1  Thess.  iii.  11,  12.     "Now  God  himself  and  our  Father,  and 
our  Lord  Jesus  (Christ),   direct  our  way  unto  you.     And  the 
Lord  make  you  to  increase  and  abound,"  etc. 

Here  there  is  distinction  between  Christ  and  the  Father,  yet 
Christ  is  equally  with  the  Father  the  object  of  the  prayer. 

2  Thess.  ii.   16,  17.     "Now  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself" 
(reverse  order  from  that  in  the  passage  just  cited,  Christ  being 
named  first)   "and  God,   even  our  Father,   which  hath   loved 

us, comfort  your  hearts  and  stablish  you  in  every  good 

word  and  work." 

Confirmatory  passages : 

1  Cor.  i.  2.  "  With  all  that  in  every  place  call  upon  the 
name  (rors  iTtiuaXovusrois  TO  ovojiioi',  compare  1  Peter  i.  17,  "and 
if  ye  call  on  the  Father,"  et  Ttarepa  eittxakEitiSE)  of  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord,  both  theirs  and  ours." 

This  shows  that  " calling  upon"  Christ  was  the  trait  of 
Christians  everywhere. 

John  xiv.  14  "If  ye  shall  ask  anything  in  my  name  I  will 
do  it." 

When,  now,  we  compare  with  such  declarations  and  state- 
ments of  fact,  passages  such  as,  Isaiah  xlv.  22 :  "  Look  unto  me 
and  be  ye  saved,  all  the  ends  of  the  earth;  for  I  am  God,  and 
there  is  none  else;"  and  as,  Jeremiah  xvii.  5:  "Thus  saith 
the  Lord,  cursed  be  the  man  that  trusteth  in  man  and  that 
maketh  flesh  his  arm,"  and  see  here,  how  praise  and  glory 
and  honor,  etc.,  are  given  to  Christ,  then  we  meet  this  di- 
lemma: Either  the  Scriptures  are  self-contradictory  or  Christ 
is  divine:  Either  the  Scriptures  recognize  more  gods  than  one, 
or  Christ  is  divine:  Either  God  gives  his  glory  to  another,  01 
Christ  is  truly  divine.  The  only  way  of  saving  the  unity  of 
God,  consistent  with  the  Scriptures,  is  by  admitting  the  divinity 
of  Christ. 

(The  objection  that  the  name  "God"  is  given  to  other  beings 
than  the  Supreme  Deity  has  already  been  considered.  It  is 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  63 

needful  to  add  only:  (a.)  It  is  never  given  to  any  other  as  it  is 
to  Christ,  (b.)  The  argument  for  his  divinity  is  not  drawn  from 
the  name  alone,  but  in  connection  with  divine  attributes  and 
works  which  are  ascribed  to  Him,  and  in  the  greatest  variety 
of  terms.) 

(6r.)  The  argument  is  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  Christ  is 
the  Kedeemer  and  Saviour:  we  are  to  look  to  Him  directly,  be- 
lieve Him,  trust  in  Him  wholly  for  our  highest  spiritual  needs. 

There  is  always  war  here  with  Christian  experience,  on  the 
part  of  those  who  refuse  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Such  love  and 
trust  as  arise  in  Christian  experience  can  be  rendered  only  to  a 
divine  being.  Christian  experience  is  in  harmony  only  with  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity. 

Thus  the  proposition  is  established.  The  Son  is  (1)  divine 
and  (2)  a  distinct  person  from  the  Father.  (The  word  Son  is 
used  here  as  a  general  term:  for  the  whole  of  Christ;  his  Sonship 
as  such  not  having  been  yet  considered.) 

§  4.  Objections  to  the  proof  of  the  Divinity  of  Christ  on  the 
ground  of  the  Arian  hypothesis. 

The  Arian  hypothesis  grants  the  pre-existence  of  Christ,  but 
asserts  that  God  the  Father  created  Him  (that  He  is  a  product 
of  the  divine  will),  and  communicated  to  Him  omnipotence, 
omniscience,  holiness,  etc.,  made  Him  an  object  of  worship,  and 
allowed  Him  to  be  called  God  and  the  Son  of  God. 

The  general  position  in  regard  to  this  hypothesis  is:  Pas- 
sages which  imply  inferiority  can  be  explained  in  harmony  with 
the  passages  which  express  divinity — but  not  the  converse. 

The  passages  which  are  cited  in  support  of  the  Arian  hy- 
pothesis are  those  in  which  the  inferiority  and  subordination  of 
the  Son  are  asserted. 

Thus  (a)  works  are  ascribed  to  the  Father  which  are  not  to 
the  Son. 

1  Cor.  i.  21.  "  Now  He  which  stablisheth  us  with  you  in 
Christ,  and  hath  anointed  us,  is  God. 

Gal.  i.  1.  "  An  apostle by  Jesus  Christ,  and  God  the 

Father,  who  raised  Him  from  the  dead." 


64  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Acts  v.  30.  "  The  God  of  our  fathers  raised  up  Jesus,  whom 
ye  slew." 

But  compare: 

John  ii.  19.  "Jesus  answered, destroy  this  temple, 

and  in  three  days  I  will  raise  it  up." 

The  Father  has,  as  Father,  special  works:  He  sends  the  Son, 
for  example ;  but  those  works  do  not  necessarily  imply  greater 
power  than,  e.  g.,  creation,  which  is  ascribed  to  the  Son. 

(&.)  Omniscience,  it  is  said,  is  not  in  Christ. 

Matt.  xxiv.  36.  "  But  of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man, 
no,  not  the  angels  of  heaven,  but  my  Father  only." 

Mark  xiii.  32.  "Not  the  angels neither  the  Son,  but 

the  Father." 

There  are  two  ways  of  understanding  this:1 

1.  Though  the  Son  as  Logos  knows,  as  incarnate,  He  does  not: 

2.  The  Logos,  as  incarnate,  parts  with  the  exercise  of  his 
divine  powers. 

(c.)  It  is  said,  that  the  worship  paid  to  Christ  is  mere  invo- 
cation. 

See  above,  under  the  passages  cited. 

(d.)  Jesus  prays  to  God,  as  subordinate  and  doing  his  will. 
Matt.  xxvi.  39;  Mark  xiv,  36;  Luke  xxiii.  46;  John  xii.  27. 

This,  however,  is  in  his  official  relation.  It  is  not  inconsistent 
with  his  divinity.  For  prayer  is  the  inmost  communion  of  the 
soul  with  God.  Christ  as  incarnate  must  commune  with  the 
Father. 

(e.)  HP  calls  God  his  God,  and  in  so  doing  places  himself  on 
common  ground  with  his  disciples. 

John  xvii.  3.  "That  they  might  know  thee,  the  only  true 
God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent." 

But  compare  1  John  v.  20.  "This  is  the  true  God  and  eter- 
nal life." 

To  make  out  the  Arian  view,  John  xvii.  3  must  be  held  to 
mean:  know  thee  the  only  true  God  in  contrast  with  me,  not 
God.  But  the  contrast  is  with  idols. 

1  This  is  considered  more  fully  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  of  the  Person 
of  Christ. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.        „  65 

John  xx.  17.  "Touch  me  not ...  I  ascend  to  my  Father  and 
your  Father,  to  my  God  and  your  God." 

The  sense  probably  is,  "Do  not  thus  lay  hold  of  me  as  if  you 
feared  to  lose  me.  I  go  to  my  Father  who  is  also  your  Father, 
to  my  God  who  is  also  your  God."  This  same  remark  applies  to 
Eph.  i.  17,  "The  God  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Father  of 
glory;"  1  Cor.  xi.  3,  "The  head  of  Christ  is  God;"  1  Cor.  xv.  28, 
"The  Son  shall  be  subject  to  Him  that  put  all  things  under 
Him." 

(/.)  It  is  said  that  there  are  passages  in  which  the  absolute 
inferiority  and  derivation  of  Christ  are  asserted. 

John  xiv.  28.  "  My  Father  is  greater  than  I."  The  Father 
has  a  greater  office  than  the  Son,  by  the  very  nature  of  the  relation. 

John  v.  26.  "  Even  so  hath  He  given  to  the  Son  to  have  life 
in  himself."  Observe:  to  have  life  in  himself,  not  to  direct  the 
quickening  energies  which  abide  in  the  Father.  The  resurrection 
is  to  be  the  result  of  the  exertion  of  the  Son's  own  power,  which 
as  Son  He  has  by  gift  and  covenant  of  the  Father,  in  himself. 

Col.  i.  15.  "  The  first  born  of  every  creature.  For  by  Him 
(sr  avt(S)  were  all  things  created,  (exrioSi})  that  are  in  heaven 
and  that  are  in  earth."  Evidently,  here,  Christ  is  placed,  in 
antagonism  with  the  creation,  on  the  side  of  God.  Moreover, 
the  first  born  (rtpGororoxos)  not  created,  the  apostle  calls  Him. 
See  also  Heb.  i.  8  (from  Ps.  xlv.  7):  "But  unto  the  Son  (=first 
born)  he  saith,  thy  throne,  0  GOD,  is  for  ever  and  ever."  Also 
Kev.  i.  5 :  "  And  from  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  faithful  witness, 
and  the  first  begotten  of  the  dead,"  in  connection  with  verse  8, 
or  11,  "  I  am  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  first  and  the  last;"  or  vs.  17, 
"  I  am  the  first  and  the  last"  (compared  with  Isa.  xli.  4,  xliv.  6, 
xlviii.  12),  or  verse  18,  where  Christ  says  He  is  from  eternity, 
the  ever-living. 

§  5.  That  the  Holy  Spirit  is  divine  and  a  distinct  Person  from 
the  Father  and  the  Son. 

(a.)  General  usage  of  the  terms  which  designate  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

"  Holy  Spirit "  and  "  Spirit  of  God  "  are  sometimes  used  in 


66  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

< 

an  impersonal  sense,  as  denoting  a  general  divine  influence  or 
mode  of  operation. 

But  we  may  distinguish  (as  has  been  well  stated  by  Ebrard), 
three  distinct  modes  or  relations  in  which  He  is  spoken  of, 

(1)  In  the  Old  Testament,  God  gives  his  Spirit  to  the  prophets, 
or  the  Spirit  speaks  in  or  to  them.     (2)  In  the  New  Testament, 
converting,  regenerating  influence  is  ascribed  to  Him;  He  leads 
to  Christ  and  applies  Christ's  woi?k,    1  Cor.  xii.  3 :  "  No  man  speak- 
ing by  the  Spirit  of  God  calleth  Jesus  accursed :  and  that  no  man 
can  say  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord,  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost."     Kom. 
viii,  14:  "  For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are 
the  Sons  of  God."     John  iii.  5:  "Except  a  man  be  born  of  water 
and  of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 
Luke  xi.   13:   "How  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father 
give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him  ?  "     (3)  He  exerts  a 
special  miraculous  agency.     Acts  ii. :   the    Pentecost.     (Fulfil- 
ment of  the  promise,  John  xiv.  16,  26.)     (Cf.  John  xvi.  7:  ''For 
if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto  you.")     The 
Apostles  were  "filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost."     In   1  Cor.  xii. 
and  xiv.,  the  charismata,  the  extraordinary  and  also  the  per- 
manent gifts  for  the  Church,  are  ascribed  to  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  extraordinary  are  also  mentioned   in  Acts  iv.   8:   "Then 
Peter,  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  said  unto  them,  Ye  rulers  of 
the  people  and  elders  of  Israel,"  etc.     (Compare  Luke  xxi.  14: 
"Settle  it  therefore  in  your  hearts,  not  to  meditate  before  what 
ye  shall  answer"  ....  ["when  brought  before  kings  and  rulers 
for  my  name's  sake;"]  .  .  .  ."for  I  will  give  you  a  mouth  and 
wisdom.") 

Hence,  says  Ebrard,  the  work  of  the  Spirit  is  (1)  prophetic, 

(2)  regenerating,  (3)  Church-building,  and  this  (a.)  as  founding 
the  Church  with  miraculous  accompaniments  or  (b.)  sustaining 
it  with  permanent  gifts. 

That  these  all  are  from  one  and  the  same  Spirit,  is  seen  from 
the  comparison  of  Joel  ii.  28-32  with  Acts  ii.  16,  and  from  the  ex- 
plicit declaration  of  the  Apostle  Peter. 

In  the  Old  Testament,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  also  the  source  of 
converting  grace. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  67 

A  difficulty  may  seem  to  be  presented  by  John  xiv.  16,  26. 
"  He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter."  "  But  the  Comforter 
....  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my  name,  He  shall  teach 
you  all  things." 

But  these  are  to  be  understood  as  promising  a  special  mode 
of  the  Holy  Spirit's  operation,  for  a  new  stage  in  the  divine 
economy  of  redemption. 

(6.)  The  Holy  Spirit  is  divine. 

This  is  generally  conceded.  He  is  called  the  Spirit  of  the 
Father,  of  the  Son,  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of  truth,  the  Spirit 
of  life. 

1  Cor.  iii.  16.  "  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God, 
and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  d welleth  in  you  ?  "  The  temple  of 
God,  by  reason  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  God:  the  asser- 
tion implies  the  absolute  divine  holiness  of  the  Spirit,  at  least. 
To  the  same  effect  is  1  Cor.  vi.  19. 

Acts  v.  3,  4  "Why  hath  Satan  filled  thine  heart  to  lie  unto 
the  Holy  Ghost?  ....  thou  hast  not  lied  unto  men  but  unto  God." 
The  offence  was  not  against  the  Spirit  of  God  as  dwelling  in  the 
heart — but  as  objective,  the  Spirit  which  rules  in  the  Church. 
Hence,  as  present  and  ruling  in  the  whole  Church,  He  is  divine. 

The  Holy  Spirit  has  the  attributes  of  absolute  truth  and  wis- 
dom. What  God  says  the  Holy  Spirit  says — and  interchangeably. 

Acts  xxviii.  25.  "  Well  spake  the  Holy  Ghost  by  Esaias  the 
prophet  unto  our  fathers,"  and 

Isa.  vi.  8.     "Also  I  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord,  saying,"  etc. 

Heb.  x.  15.  "  Whereof  the  Holy  Ghost  also  is  a  witness  to 
us :  for  after  that  He  had  said  before,  This  is  the  covenant  that 
I  will  make  with  them  after  those  days,  saith  the  Lord/*  and 

Jer.  xxxi.  33.  "  But  this  shall  be  the  covenant saith 

the  Lord."  Also  xxx.  1. 

The  regenerating  power  and  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are 
such  as  could  not  be  exercised  by  any  created  energy. 

His  action  within  the  divine  nature  is  inconsistent  with  any 
supposition  save  his  divinity. 

1  Cor.  ii.  10,  11.  "For  the  Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea 
the  deep  things  of  God." 


68  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

(c.)  The  Holy  Spirit  is  distinct  from  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
and  is  personal:  is  not  the  mere  activity  of  God. 

Matt,  xxviii.  19.  "  Baptizing  them  in  (ets)  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Neither  a 
creature  nor  a  mode  of  agency  could  be  so  spoken  of. 

2  Cor.  xiii.  14.  "The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with 
you  all."  The  Holy  Spirit  must  be  as  distinguishable  from  the 
Father  as  from  the  Son. 

The  same  fact  was  symbolized  at  Christ's  baptism  (Matt, 
iii.  16,  Mark  i.  10),  Luke  iii.  22.  "And  the  Holy  Ghost  descended 
in  bodily  shape,  like  a  dove  upon  Him,  and  a  voice  came  from 
heaven,"  etc.  Here  the  symbol  of  the  Spirit  is  distinguished 
from  the  voice  of  the  Father. 

Rom.  viii.  16.  "The  Spirit  himself  beareth  witness  with  our 
spirit." 

Eom.  viii.  26,  27.  "The  Spirit  himself  maketh  intercession .... 
And  he  that  searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth  what  is  the  mind  of 
the  Spirit." 

Eph.  iv.  30.  "And  grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God."  This 
is  not  intelligible,  if  the  Spirit  is  not  personal :  a  mode  of  divine 
agency  cannot  be  grieved. 

1  Cor.  xii.  11.  "  But  all  these  worketh  that  one  and  the  self- 
same Spirit,  dividing  to  every  man  severally  as  He  will "  (fiovkerai). 

1  Cor.  xii.  4—11.     In  this  passage  the  Holy  Spirit  is  distin 
guished  from  the  gifts  of  the  Church ;  in  the  fifth  verse  He  ia 
distinguished  from  Christ,  and  in  the  sixth,  from  God. 

1  Cor.  ii.  10,  11.  "  The  Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea,  tho 
deep  things  of  God." 

Matt.  xii.  31,  32.  Blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit  is  dis 
tinguished  from  that  against  Christ. 

Masculine,  not  neuter,  forms  are  employed  to  designate  the 
Spirit.  John  xiv.  16,  aXkov  itapdxXriTov,  26,  6  ds  icapdKX.r)roS9 
XV.  26,  6  •jtapd.K'X.rjToS,  or,  xvi.  13,  otav  ds  eXSy  &Keivo$9  TO  itvevfiia 
rns  dXr}$Eia$.  (kxeivot  alone  would  not  be  conclusive  as  referring 
to  6  Ttapdn'X.rjToS,  but  it  is  decisive,  as  referring  to  ro  nrtvjua).  See 
also  John  xvi.  14.  knelvo^  £jue 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  69 

Personal  acts  are  ascribed  to  the  Spirit.  He  teaches,  testifies, 
speaks,  convinces. 

All  this  is  inconsistent  with  personification  merely. 

Acts  xiii  2,  4.  "The  Holy  Ghost  said,  Separate  me  Bar- 
nabas and  Saul  ....  So  they,  being  sent  forth  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  etc. 

Acts  xv.  28.  "  For  it  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
to  us." 

Gal.  iv.  4-6.  "  God  sent  forth  his  Son  ....  that  we  might 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons.  And  because  ye  are  sons,  God 
hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  his  Son  into  our  hearts,  crying, 
Abba,  Father."  Here  the  sending  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Spirit 
are  described  in  the  same  terms. 

1  Pet.  i.  12. — "them  that  have  preached  the  gospel  unto  you 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  sent  down  from  hedven." 

(d.)  Objections  to  the  distinct  personality  of  the  Spirit. 

First  Objection :  There  are  passages  which  speak  of  Christ 
dwelling  in  us,  in  the  same  way  as  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of 
Christ  is  said  to  dwell  in  us,  e.  g.,  Rom.  viii.  9,  10,  11;  Gal. 
ii.  20;  Cf.  Rom.  viii.  14;  Eph.  iii.  17;  Cf.  Gal.  iv.  6. 

Yet  the  Scriptures  speak  distinctly  of  the  continued  difference 
of  the  Son  and  the  Spirit. 

Acts  ii.  33.  "He  (Christ)  hath  shed  forth  this"  (the  outpour- 
ing of  the  Spirit).  Acts  iii.  21 :  (Jesus  Christ)  "Whom  the  heaven 
must  receive  until  the  times  of  restitution  of  all  things."  So 
through  John  xiv.,  the  same  difference  is  shown:  the  Paraclete 
is  to  take  the  place  of  Christ. 

1  John  iii.  2.  The  Spirit  transforms  us  into  the  image  of 
Christ  when  at  last  we  see  Him  as  He  is. 

Rom.  viii.  16,  26.  The  Spirit  gives  assurance  of  adoption, 
but,  Heb.  vii.  25,  Christ  in  heaven  intercedes. 

1  Cor.  iii.  16.  The  Spirit  dwells  in  us  as  a  temple,  but,  Eph. 
v.  23,  Christ  is  the  head  of  the  body. 

Acts  xix.  2.  (£/  rtvsvjua  ayiov  eXdfisrs  ittdrev'tiarrts)  "Did 
ye  receive  the  Holy  Ghost  when  ye  believed  ?  " 


70  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Second  Objection: 

In  John  vii.  38,  39  it  is  said,  "  For  the  Holy  Ghost  was  not 
yet  [given];  because  that  Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified"  ;  as  if 
the  existence  of  the  Spirit  began  with  the  glorification  of  Christ. 

But  Christ  had  the  Spirit  before,  as  prophet;  Acts  x.  38, 
"  How  God  anointed  Jesus  of  Nazareth  with  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Christ  had  received  the  Spirit  at  his  baptism ;  Matt.  iv.  16,  and 
parallels. 

The  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament  were  enlightened  by  the 
Spirit:  1  Pet.  i.  11;  Cf.  Ps.  li.  12,  cxliii.  10;  Isa.  Ixiii.  10,  11. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  Spirit  is  promised  to  Christ  as 
Messiah. 

Isa.  xi.  2.  u  And  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  Him  " 
(upon  "  the  rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse  "). 

Isa.  xlii.  1.  "  Behold  my  servant,  whom  I  uphold ; 

I  have  put  my  Spirit  upon  Him." 

Isa.  Ixi.  1.  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon  me."  (Cf. 
Luke  iv.  18;  John  iii.  34 — "not  the  Spirit  by  measure.") 

Isa.  Ixv.  2.  "  I  have  spread  out  my  hands  all  the  day  unto 
a  rebellious  people,"  etc.  Cf.  Acts  vii.  51.  "Ye  stiffnecked 
arid  uncircumcised  in  heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always  resist  the 
Holy  Ghost;"  and  Kom.  x.  21. 

Hence,  it  is  the  same  Spirit  that  speaks  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  in  the  New. 

Third  Objection: 

That  the  Spirit  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  or,  Christ  coming  again 
to  men,  as  Spirit.  The  Lord  is  TO  itrevna,  2  Cor.  iii.  17. 

Against  this  (1)  is  the  fact  that  Christ  promises  his  dis- 
ciples that  the  Spirit  should  come  in  his  stead:  John  xiv.  18, 
xvi.  16,  22. 

The  return  of  Christ  is  to  be  "in  glory" — not  at  his  resur- 
rection— not  at  the  Pentecost:  John  xiv.  3,  "I  will  come  again 
and  receive  you  unto  myself,  that  where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be 
also ;"  this  refers  to  a  coming  in  which  He  will  receive  the  Church 
permanently,  having  previously  prepared  "  a  place  "  for  it. 

This  whole  mode  of  statement,  that  Christ  would  depart, 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  71 

send  in  his  stead  the  Comforter  and  again  himself  return,  is 
utterly  inconsistent  with  the  view  that  He  himself  returns 
simply  as  spirit. 

(2)  As  to  passage  cited  (2  Cor.  iii.  17),  the  apostle  goes  on  to 
say,  "  and  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty."  The 
contrast  is  between  the  Spirit  of  Christ  and  the  law  of  Moses: 
the  sense,  he  that  has  the  Lord  (in  contrast  with,  he  that  has 
Moses),  has  the  Spirit. 

A  fourth  objection,  from  John  iv.  24.     God  is  Spirit 


But  this  cannot  mean,  Spirit  is  equivalent  to  God:  we  can- 
not say  the  Spirit  of  Christ  is  equivalent  to  the  spiritual  nature 
of  God.  The  meaning  is,  God  is  Spirit,  in  contrast  with  the 
world. 

§  6.  The  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  classed  together,  separately 
from  all  other  beings,  as  divine.  (The  Trinitarian  texts.) 

It  is  a  conceded  point  that  no  other  beings  or  names  than 
these,  through  the  whole  Scriptures,  are  so  represented,  with 
divine  powers  and  attributes.  That  these  three  are  thus  rep- 
resented, separately,  we  have  already  seen. 

But,  besides  these  separate  passages,  there  are  also  such  as 
combine  the  three  together  —  in  a  peculiar  way,  as  no  others  are 
thus  combined.  Having  shown  the  divine  names,  attributes  and 
personality  of  each,  the  Scriptures  bind  them  together  in  one, 
and  in  a  peculiar  manner. 

2  Cor.  xiii.  14.  "  The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
the  love  of  God,  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  with 
you  all." 

1  Pet.  i.  2.  "  Elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God 
the  Father,  through  sanctification  of  the  Spirit,  unto  obedience 
and  sprinkling  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ." 

John  xiv.  16.  (The  Trinity  hinted  at.)  "I  will  pray  the 
Father,  and  He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter." 

1  Cor.  viii.  6.  "  But  to  us  there  is  one  God,  the  Father,  of 
whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  Him  ;  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  b)  Him,"  Compare  with 


72  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

1  Cor.  xii.  3-6.  "No  man  can  say  Jesus  is  the  Lord  but  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Now  there  are  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the 
same  Spirit.  And  there  are  differences  of  administration,  but 
the  same  Lord.  And  there  are  diversities  of  operations,  but  it 
is  the  same  God  which  worketh  all  in  all." 

Matt,  xxviii.  19.  "  Baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 
and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

The  baptized  person  is  represented  here  as  brought  into  the 
same  relation  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  elsewhere  to  the  Father 
and  Son.  . 

(At  the  Baptism  of  Christ,  Matt.  iii.  16,  the  voice  of  the 
Father  is  accompanied  by  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit.) 

§  7.  Result  of  the  Biblical  Evidence  in  respect  to  the  divinity  of 
tlie  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit. 

1.  That  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit  are  personally  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other.     There  is  recognized  throughout 
a  personal  relation  of  the  Father  and  Son  to  each  other.     So  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  both. 

2.  They  each  have  divine  names  and  attributes. 

3.  Yet  there  is  only  one  God. 

NOTE.  These  distinctions  are  not  restricted  to  Christ's  formally 
appearing  in  the  world,  or  to  the  giving  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  but 
continue  still.  Any  other  view  than  this  would  destroy  our 
whole  Christian  experience.  Christ  is  still  the  personal  object 
of  faith  and  love,  distinct  from  the  Father. 

If  the  distinction  is  not  immanent,  yet  it  is  permanent. 

We  apply  what  the  Scriptures  say  of  the  distinction  of  per- 
sons still;  we  separate  between  Him  to  whom  we  are  reconciled, 
the  Father;  Him  by  whom  we  are  reconciled,  the  Son;  and  Him 
through  whom,  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  Trinity,  at  any  rate,  is  in  the  whole  economy  of  re- 
demption, as  permanent.  From  the  Trinity  in  the  economy 
we  pass  to  the  second  point,  THE  ESSENTIAL  TRINITY. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  73 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE    ESSENTIAL    TRINITY. 

The  Second  Proposition:  That  the  Distinctions  here  proved 
are  not  restricted  to  the  economy,  the  manifestation,  or  revela- 
tion of  God  ad  extra,  but  are  internal. 

Order  of  discussion: 

1.  That  they  are  internal. 

2.  That  they  are  appropriately  designated  as  personal  distinctions.     Sense  ol 
"Person." 

3.  In  what  way,  as  personal  distinctions,  they  exist  in  the  Godhead.     How  to 
be  conceived  of— if  at  all. 

4.  Of  the  "Sonship." 

§  1.  That  the  distinctions  of  the  Godhead  are  represented  in  the. 
Scriptures  as  internal. 

The  question  here  is  a  simple  one:  on  Biblical  grounds, 
whether  what  is  asserted  in  Scripture,  of  the  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit  is  spoken  simply  and  solely  with  respect  to  the  modes  of 
manifestation,  or,  so  as  to  imply,  necessarily,  internal  modes  of 
subsistence. 

This  is  primarily  a  question  of  Scriptural  interpretation. 
It  is  a  question  with  respect  to  Sabellianism.  Sabellianism, 
as  contrasted  with  Arianism,  says:  The  Son  in  his  nature 
is  divine,  but  not  eternally  personal;  He  became,  in  the  Incar 
nation,  a  distinct  person  from  the  Father.  (1)  In  the  man 
Jesus  the  infinite  God  appears,  personally;  the  divine  nature 
is  in  Him.  (2)  God  from  eternity  decreed  this.  (3)  As  pre- 
existent  in  God  Jesus  is  the  Logos. 

Sabellianism  has  two  forms:  (1)  God,  revealed  as  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit;  (2)  God  the  Father,  revealed  as  Son  and  Spirit. 
Strict  Sabellianism  says :  The  Logos  is  the  medium  of  the  reve- 
lation. It  is  called  Modalism. 

As  compared  with  Arianism,  Sabellianism  is  more  profound; 
it  is  congruent  with  the  divine  nature  of  Christ;  it  explains 
the  passages  which  speak  of  that  nature,  and  also  of  the 


74  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

relative  subordination.  The  relation  of  Arianism  and  Sabel- 
lianism  is  this:  what  Sabellianism  urges  for  the  inherent  di- 
vinity of  Christ  refutes  Arianism;  what  Arianism  urges  for 
the  distinct  pre-existent  personality  of  the  Son  refutes  Sa- 
bellianism. Sabellianism,  says  Athanasius,  is  refuted  by  the 
idea  of  the  Son,  Arianism  by  the  idea  of  the  Father  (Ath. 
cont.  Ar.  iv.  2.  3.) 

The  simple  primary  question  is  this:  Do  the  Scriptures 
restrict  the  personal  distinctions  to  the  sphere  of  the  mani- 
festation, or  do  they  demand  that  we  conceive  of  them  as 
eternal  in  the  Godhead. 

(a.)  Passages  which  speak  clearly  of  a  personal  pre-ex- 
istence  of  the  Son,  before  the  Incarnation. 

John  viii.  58.  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  This  can 
not  be  interpreted  as  setting  forth  an  impersonal  pre-existence 
in  the  mind  of  God,  as  idea.  Also  John  viii.  42.  "  I  proceeded 
forth  and  came  from  God." 

John  xvii.  5.  "  Glorify  thou  me  with  thine  own  self 
(itapd  tiEavrca)  with  the  glory  which  I  had  with  thee,  before 
the  world  was"  (#  eixor  itpd  rov  Toy  uotifjLov  sivai  Ttapd  601} :  a  state 
which  was  once,  and  is  to  be  again:  it  is  to  be  again,  ag 
personal;  therefore  it  was  personal. 

Phil.  ii.  6-8.  "  Who  being  in  the  form  of  God  ....  took  the 
form  of  a  servant:  and  being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,"  etc. 
.  .  .  .  The  "form  of  man"  was  personal:  so,  "  the  form  of  God." 

John  xvi.  28.  "I  came  forth  from  the  Father,  and  am 
come  into  the  world." 

John  vi.  62.  "  What  and  if  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  as- 
cend up  where  He  was  before  ?  " 

John  i.  1-14.     The  doctrine  of  the  Logos. 

Logos  must  be  either  reason  or  word:  the  latter  is  the 
New  Testament  and  Septuagint  usage.  Reason  (Wisdom)  as 
Creative  is  expressed  by  6o(pia  in  the  Bible  and  Apocrypha 

The  "beginning"  spoken  of  must  be  before  creation:  for, 
verse  3,  "all  things  were  made  by  Him."  He  was  with  God, 
intimate,  yet  separate.  "The  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt 
among  us,  and  we  beheld  his  glory."  Before  this  the  Word 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  75 

was  either  a  person  or  a  personification:  it  could  not  be  the 
latter,  for  it  is  the  same  being  after  the  Incarnation  as  be- 
fore. The  Logos  is  not  a  mere  activity  of  God.  "Word" 
is  inconsistent  with  that.  It  is  an  internal  modification.  It 
is  an  activity,  in  the  sense  of  an  eternal  speech,  word  of  God 
as  a  modification  of  the  Deity — such  that  thereby  He  makes 
the  world  and  becomes  incarnate. 

The  great  acts  of  God  ad  extra  are  two:  creation  and 
incarnation,  and  these  are  both  referred  to  the  Logos. 

Even  if  kv  dpxy  is  to  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  it  was  the  beginning  of  what  is  temporal:  what  is 
before  is  eternal. 

Ttp6$  toy  5s6v  designates  a  living  relation.1 

Col.  i.  15.  "Who  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God,  the 
firstborn  of  every  creature." 

Heb.  i.  3.  "Who  being  the  brightness  of  his  glory  and 
the  express  image  of  his  person." 

The  expression  "firstborn  of  every  creature"  refers  to  his 
ante-temporal  condition,  also  including  his  superior  excellence. 
Whatever  else  may  be  questioned  in  this  passage,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  his  origin  is  a  begetting;  not  a  creating. 

(&.)  Passages  which  imply  such  pre-existence  (not  yielding  the 
strictest  proof  of  it,  but  not  naturally  interpreted  without  it). 

John  iii.  16.     "That  He  gave  his  only-begotten  Son." 

John  vi.  33,  38.  "  The  bread  of  God  is  that  which  cometh 
down  from  heaven  ....  For  I  came  ,down  from  heaven,  not 
to  do  mine  own  will." 

John  xii.  49.  "But  the  Father,  which  sent  me,  He  gave 
me  a  commandment." 

This  use  of  the  word  Father,  showing  that  Christ  speaks 
as  Son,  and  the  reference  to  himself  as  "sent,"  presuppose  a 
previous  personal  relation. 

Such  passages  as  these  are  to  be  also  noted: 

Gal.  iv.  4.     "But  when  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come, 

i  The  historical  genesis  of  the  idea  of  the  Logos  confirms  this.  Wisdom, 
Logos  of  Philo,  Angel  of  God,  Glory  of  God,  Name  of  God,  etc.,  become  concen- 
trated in  the  dtfotrine  of  the  Logos.  And  this  proves  a  pre-exiatent  hypostasis 


76  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

God  sent  forth  his  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the 
law."  Observe  that  before  He  was  sent,  He  was  viewed  as 
the  Son. 

John  xvi.  28.  "I  came  forth  from  the  Father,  and  am  come 
into  the  world." 

John  iii.  31.  "He  that  cometh  from  above  is  above  all." 
Cf.  verse  11,  "and  testify  that  we  have  seen." 

1  Cor.  x.  4.  "They  drank  of  that  spiritual  Rock  that 
followed  them:  and  that  Rock  was  Christ." 

(c.)  The  assertion  of  Scripture  that  Christ  created  the  world, 
is  inconsistent  with  all  the  forms  of  Sabellianism.  Sabellianism 
supposes  that  Christ  was  a  person  only  in  relation  to  the  re- 
demption of  the  world. 

(d.)  The  Old  Testament  in  speaking  of  Jehovah  and  the 
Messiah,  the  Wisdom,  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant,  etc.,  con- 
firms the  view  that  the  relations  of  the  Father  and  Son  are 
internal. 

Isa.  xl.  3,  9,  and  especially  10.  "  Behold  the  Lord  God  will 
come  with  strong  hand." 

Zech.  ii.  10.  "  Sing  and  rejoice,  0  daughter  of  Zion :  for  lo, 
I  come,  and  I  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of  thee,  saith  the  Lord." 
John  i.  14.  "  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among 
us."  The  perfect  fulfilment:  Rev.  xxii.  7.  "Behold  1  come 
quickly." 

(e.)  The  continued  personal  being  and  relation  to  us  of  the 
Son,  is  also  against  the  Sabellian  position. 

He  is  to  remain  forever  in  this  relation. 

Rom.   i.  4. — "declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power 
....  by  the  resurrection  from  the  dead." 

Heb.  xiii.  8.  "  Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever." 

Rom.  vi.  9,  10.  "Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead  dieth 
no  more in  that  He  liveth,  He  liveth  unto  God." 

Acts  ii.  33.  "Therefore  being  by  the  right  hand  of  God 
exalted  ....  He  hath  shed  forth  this,  which  ye  tow  see  and 
hear," 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.  77 

§  2.  Eemarks  on  Sabellianism. 

The  general  result  of  the  Sabellian  hypothesis,  on  the  basis 
of  the  Scriptural  evidence  for  the  pre-existence  of  Christ,  and 
that  He  is  the  Creator. " 

Sabellianism  wants  to  show  that  the  personal  distinctions 
belong*  to  the  revealed  and  not  to  the  immanent  Godhead — 
that  they  arise  in  the  revelation  ad  extra  and  only  for  the 
purpose  of  a  revelation,  and  have  no  essential  being  in  the 
divine  na-ture. 

But  the  pa&sages  cit-ed  prove: 

1.  Personal  pre-existence  before  Incarnation,  so  that  that  form 
of  Sabellianism  which  makes  the  personality  of  Christ  begin  then 
is  effectually  ruled  out. 

2.  They  also  show  that  Christ  as  pre-existent,  created  the 
worlds,   all  things  in  heaven  and  earth,   so  that  the   person- 
al distinction  had  a   being  before  anything  created  was,  and 
did  not  come  into  being  for  the  exigencies  of  the  divine  mani- 
festation. 

3.  The  only  resort   then  for   Sabellianism,   consistent  with 
these  passages  is  to  say:  God  as  Son  existed  personally  before 
Creation  and  Incarnation — was  a  distinct  personal  agent  before 
time  began;  but  if  this  is  said,  then  the  Son  did  not  come  into 
being  as  a  person  with  special  reference  to  any  revelation  of  God: 
the  utmost  that  can  be  said  is,  He  came  into  being  as  a  person, 
antecedently,  because  the  world  was  to  be  made  and  redeemed 
by  Him.     But  his  distinct  existence  as  a  person  is  thrown  back 
into  the  nature  of  God,  into  eternity. 

And  when  this  is  said,  we  have  realty  either  Arianism,  or 
what  is  equivalent  to  an  eternal  generation  of  the  Son.  Sup- 
posing Arianism  to  be  refuted,  the  only  question  that  remains 
in  respect  to  Sabellianism  would  be  this:  does  God,  from  a  ne- 
cessity of  his  nature,  exist  internally  as  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit — 
or,  do  these  personal  distinctions  in  God  exist  in  Him  from  all 
eternity,  with  respect  to  a  future  revelation  of  himself.  The 
eternal  existence  being  conceded,  this  question  is  an  unimpor- 
tant one;  and  there  is  no  ground  in  Scripture  or  reason  for 
saying  that  the  existence  of  these  personal  distinctions  is  con- 


78  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ditioned  by  the  possible  future  existence  of  the  world  and  of 
redemption. 

NOTE.— That  form  of  Sabellianism  which  makes  it  to  be,  that  the  same  God 
assumed  these  different  characters,  viz.,  as  Father*,  the  character  of  Creator,  as 
Son,  of  Kedeemer,  as  Holy  Spirit,  of  Sanctifier— is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the 
patent  fact  of  the  distinct  personal  being  of  the  Son. 

Further  Remarks  on  the  Sdbellian  Hypothesis. 

1.  That  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  simply  manifestations, 
is  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine  respecting  the  Father,  as  already 
expounded. 

2.  If  these  are  taken  strictly,  as  modes  of  manifestation, 
following  on  each  other  and  receding,   we  lose   the   abiding 
personalities. 

3.  We  have  still  three  (if  not  four)  divine  persons  to  wor- 
ship.    We  have  the  inconvenience  which  is  supposed  to  inhere 
in  the  orthodox  view,  without  the  firmness  of  personalities  which 
that  gives. 

4  The  Sabellian  view  leads  logically  to  the  idea  of  a  change 
in  God  in  his  mode  of  being,  a  change  in  time. 

After  the  Incarnation,  God  exists  as,  is,  a  triad — a  three-fold 
personality;  He  was  not«so  before.  Hence  a  change  must  have 
occurred  in  his  mode  of  being,  and  the  view  conflicts  with  the 
divine  unchangeableness.  This  also  leads  to  the  pantheistic 
view — that  the  Incarnation  is  an  essential  mode  of  the  man- 
ifestation of  Deity,  a  process  of  self-evolution. 

Either  this  must  be  admitted,  or  else  the  personalities  must 
be  viewed  as  fleeting  and  unsubstantial. 

5.  Logically,  there  must  be  some  ground  in  the  Deity  why 
He  is  revealed  as  a  three-fold  personality.  Either,  there  is  a 
creative  power,  so  that  the  person  of  Christ  is  produced  by 
divine  efficiency,  or  there  is  a  mode  of  subsistence  in  God  him- 
self, corresponding  to  the  manifestation,  so  that  the  latter  is  but 
the  expression  of  the  former.  We  must  apply  either  the  cate- 
gory of  cause  and  effect  or  that  of  ground  and  manifestation. 
The  first  cannot  be  applied;  for  then  Christ  would  be  a  created 
being,  and  the  passages  which  speak  of  pre- existence  (to  refer 
to  no  others)  are  against  this.  If  the  second  is  applied,  then 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMFTION.  79 

we  must  recognize  a  specific  mode  of  subsistence  in  the  Deity 
corresponding  to  the  manifestations. 

The  Sabellian  idea  of  God  is  that  of  the  abstract  unity  allow- 
ing no  differences.  It  is  a  transference  to  God  of  the  idea  of  a 
human  individual  personality.  Of  old  it  was  accused  of  Judais- 
tic  tendencies;  it  has  also  pantheistic  tendencies. 

6.  The  Sabellian  hypothesis,  instead  of  simplifying,  does  only 
confuse  our  relation  to  God. 

We  have,  as  Christians,  a  direct  personal  relation  to  Christ, 
also  to  the  Father,  also  to  the  Spirit.  This  presupposes  a  personal 
relation  (objective)  between  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  If  it 
does  not,  we  are  in  a  two-  fold  relation  to  God  :  to  God  as  re- 
vealed, and  to  God  as  He  is  in  himself.  We  cannot  make  this 
clear,  cannot  extricate  ourselves  from  an  inevitable  confusion. 

It  is  taking  the  subjective  side  of  revelation  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  objective  —  a  part  of  the  process  which  ends  in  the  denial 
of  the  objective  validity  of  the  Christian  revelation. 

7.  By  logical  consequence,  it  leads  to  the  pantheistic  view: 
the  Father  is  God,  in  his  abstract,  unfathomable,  impersonal 
unity;  the  Son  is  the  world,  creation  —  this  abstract  divinity 
realized,  coming  to  personality  in  man;  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
process  by  which  all  things  return  back  to  the  original  con- 
dition. 

8.  The  humanity  of  Christ  is  lost,  on  this  view.     It  has  no 
abiding  worth.    This,  if  not  a  necessary,  is  a  natural  consequence. 

§  3.  That  these  Distinctions  in  the  Godhead  are  appropriately 
designated  as  Personal  Distinctions  —  Hypostases?  in  the  present  Usage. 

The  Father  is  not  the  Son,  nor  the  Son  the  Father,  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  neither.  They  are  distinguished  from  each  other,  while 
they  are  all  termed  divine. 

We  express  what  is  common  in  them  by  saying,  they  have 
the  same  divine  nature  (essence)  and  attributes:  the  same  iden- 
tical nature  and  attributes. 

They  differ,  in  this,  from  three  men,  having  the  same  human 


TOVTO  sdrt  TO  itoiovv  rot's  aipsriKoiS  Trjr  rthavrfv,  TO  ravro 
Tteyziv  TTJV  cpvtiiv  ncd  Trjv  vrtotfradiv.   Job.  Damasc.    DeFide  Orth.  lib.  i.  c.  iii. 


80  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

nature:  in  the  latter  case  there  is  not  an  identity  of  substance. 
But  in  God  the  same  numerical  substance  belongs  equally  to 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 

How,  now,  shall  that  in  which  they  differ  be  expressed? 
It  is  all  expressed  in  common  usage,  in  the  three  distinct  terms, 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  Another  mode  of  expressing  it  is  by 
the  term  Person-,  the  first,  second,  and  third  persons  in  the  God- 
head. The  doubts  about  this  are:  (1)  It  is  a  word  not  used  in 
the  Scriptures  for  this  purpose,  (2)  It  seems  to  convey  too  defi- 
nite an  idea,  as  of  three  human  persons.  Some  have  preferred 
to  say,  "  three  distinctions." 

What,  then,  are  the  definitions  of  person,  as  distinguished 
from  substance  or  essence?  Substance  is  that  which  is  common, 
person  that  in  which  they  differ. 

The  old  Scholastic  definition  of  person  is,  "ipsa  essentia  divina 
certo  charactere  hypostatico  insignita,  ac  proprio  subsistendi 
modo  a  reliquis  distincta."  Each  person  is  a  mode  of  subsistence 
of  the  same  divine  essence.  In  common  usage  a  person  is  one 
who  can  say  /:  who  can  be  addressed  by  the  personal  pronouns. 
Self-consciousness  is  then  the  distinctive  attribute  of  personality 
— it  is  that  by  which  we  specifically  know  personality.  Each 
of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity  must,  then,  be  supposed  by  us  to 
have  a  self-consciousness :  this  is  the  least  that  can  be  said,  main- 
taining anything  like  discrimination.  If  we  do  not  say  this,  we 
deny  any  conceivable  distinctions  in  the  Godhead — we  must  say 
"three  distinctions,"  three  modes  of  self-consciousness  in  the 
Deity. 

§  4.  The  ecclesiastical  Statements  as  to  the  distinctive  Character- 
istics of  the  Persons. 

How  are  we  to  conceive  of  these  immanent  personal  distinc- 
tions? Not  how  they  came  to  be-,  but,  how  they  are — how  the 
persons  are  distinguishable  from  each  other. 

There  are  two  forms  of  statement  here:  The  persons  are  dis- 
tinguishable (1)  as  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  (2)  As,  first 
person,  second  person,  and  third  person,  of  the  Godhead. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.  81 

Statements  of  Hie  Westminster  Standards: 

"Conf."  ch.  ii.  §  3.  "In  the  unity  of  the  Godhead  there  be 
three  persons  of  one  substance,  power,  and  eternity;  God  the 
Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Father  is 
of  none,  neither  begotten  nor  proceeding;  the  Son  is  eternally 
begotten  of  the  Father;  the  Holy  Ghost  eternally  proceeding 
from  the  Father  and  the  Son." 

"  Larg.  Cat."  Ans.  to  Q.  9.  "There  be  three  persons  in  the 
Godhead,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  these 
three  are  one  true,  eternal  God,  the  same  in  substance,  equal  in 
power  and  glory:  although  distinguished  by  their  personal  prop- 
erties/' Q.  10.  "  What  are  the  personal  properties  of  the  three 
persons  in  the  Godhead  ?  "  Ans.  "  It  is  proper  to  the  Father  to 
beget  the  Son,  and  to  the  Son  to  be  begotten  of  the  Father,  and 
to  the  Holy  Ghost  to  proceed  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  from 
all  eternity." 

NOTE. — The  expression,  "equal  in  power  and  glory"  is  sometimes  interpreted, 
incorrectly,  as  if  the  power  and  glory  were  numerically  distinguishable. 

The  Significance  of  these  "Personal  Properties" 

Without  them,  the  doctrine  is  reduced  to  indefiniteness. 

The  received  statements  about  the  Trinity  in  most  of  the 
orthodox  expositions,  may  be  here  appropriately  adduced  to  il- 
lustrate the  sense  of  these  distinctions.  These  statements  are 
given  under  the  three  heads:  (1)  Unity,  (2)  Difference,  (3)  Mutual 
Relation. 

1.  Unity.  This  lies  in  the  essence,  ovtiia,  or  substance.  The 
earlier  mode  of  conceiving  the  matter  placed  this  unity  in  the 
Father  as  the  fountain  and  source  of  the  other  personalities;  but 
this  was  abandoned  after  Augustine's  time.  It  has  since  been 
commonly  held  that  the  one  divine  essence  is  common  to  all  the 
three,  and  that  each  has  the  totality  thereof. 

What  is  this  divine  essence?  It  is  absolute  spirituality,  all 
divine  perfections  and  attributes — those  of  the  understanding  and 
of  the  will.  Thomasius:  "The  absolute  personality  is  common, 
the  same  for  the  three  persons."  God,  as  essence,  is  not  dead, 
but  living:  uactus  purissimus." 


82  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

2.  The  Difference,  or  Distinction  of  Persons.1    In  the  one  essence 
there  are  different  "modes  of  subsistence,"  not  nominal,  nor  es- 
sential, but  real.     Each  one  of  the  three  "  Persons  "  has  an  ap- 
propriate mode  of  subsistence,  peculiar  to  himself,  whereby  He 
is  distinguished  from  the  others — as  a  person.     The  properties 
of  these  persons  are  partly  internal  acts  and  partly  the  personal 
properties  thence  resulting.     The  act  of  the  Father  is  generation 
— his  characteristic  then  is,  paternity.     The  act  of  the  Father 
and  Son  is  spiratio.     Or,  "Generation"  is  the  eternal  production 
of  the  Son  from  the  Father — "God  of  God."     Spiratio — proces 
sion — is  the  eternal  proceeding  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the  Fa 
ther  and  the  Son. 

These  acts  are  different  from  creation,  as  being  eternal  acts 
and  as  not  being  the  production  from  nothing.  They  are  also 
acts  differing  from  each  other,  each  produces  a  different  person, 
but  what  they  are  is  unfathomable. 

The  personal  properties  resulting  from  these  personal  acts 
are:  the  distinctive  traits  of  the  three  persons,  viz.,  paternity, 
sonship,  procession.  The  Father  is  unbegotten,  the  Son  be- 
gotten, the  Holy  Spirit  proceeding, — eternally. 

The  procession  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  equally  from  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  not  as  distinct,  but  so  far  as  they  have  the  same 
divine  essence.  "  Fatendum  est,  patrem  et  filium  principia  esse 
Spiritus  Sancti,  non  ut  duo  principia,  sed  ut  unum  principium." 
Augustine,  de  Trin.  v.  14. 

3.  The  relation  of  the  Persons  to  the  Unity.    The  three  are  related 
tc  the  same  divine  essence,  not  as  parts,  but  as  modes  of  subsist- 
ence.    The  divine  essence  is  not  before,  nor  external  to,  but  in 
the  persons  eternally.     This  must  be  held,  otherwise  we  should 
have  four  persons  instead  of  three.     The  difference  is  not  in  the 
eternity,  nor  in  any  divine  attribute,  but  in  the  order  of  subsist- 
ence.    The  Father  is  first  in  order  (not  in  time),  the  unbegotten; 


1  The  derivation  of  persona  from  rtpoticaTtov  (=rtpo<a  rov$  odrtaS)  is  not 
sustained.  Thomas  Aquinas,  "Sumrna,"  p.  1,  qu.  29,  art.  4,  says  "  persona  dicitui 
quasi  per  se  una."  In  the  tract  "De  Persona,"  ascribed  to  Boethius,  it  is  said, 
"Persona  dicta  est  a  personando."  This  is  the  true  derivation,  to  sound  through 
a  mask  (larva  histrionalis). 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  83 

the  Son  is  second,  the  begotten :  the  Son  has  the  principle  (not 
the  cause)  of  his  subsistence  in  the  Father;  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
both.  If  we  say,  first,  second,  and  third  persons,  we  indicate, 
still,  an  order  of  subsistence. 

Aquinas  (p.  1,  q.  31,  art.  1,  ad  4m):  "Cum  ergo  dicimus  trinita 
tern  in  unitate,  non  ponimus  numerura  in  unitate  essentise,  quasi 
sit  ter  una;  sed  personas  numeratas  ponimus  in  unitate  naturae, 
sicut  supposita  alicujus  naturse  dicuntur  esse  in  natura  ilia." 

Questions: 

(a.)  Is  the  Father  the  cause  of  the  being  of  the  Son  and 
Spirit? 

No — not  cause — the  ground. 

(&.)  Does  the  Son  exist  by  the  will  of  the  Father? 

Not  as  the  product  of  that  will :  but  free  activity. 

(c.)  If  activity  is  stated  as  the  ground,  then  before  that  the 
Son  was  not  ? 

No,  the  activity  was  eternal. 

(d.)  Is  all  subordination  inconsistent  with  divinity? 

Yes,  if  it  involves  anything  ad  extra — or  any  want  of  the 
divine  perfections. 

(e.)  Is  not  derived  being  inconsistent  with  divinity  ? 

Yes:  if  the  relations  of  time  are  introduced. 

KEMABK.     The  whole  conception  is  in  accordance  with  this  canon:  "Prinoi- 
pium  missionis  in  tempore  est  principium  missionis  in  seternitate." 

§  5.  Is  the  term  Son  used  in  tJie  Scriptures  in  reference  to  Christ's 
immanent  relation  to  the  Father  ? 

Positions  in  respect  to  "  Sonship." 

1.  The  term  is  not  used  for  the  mere  humanity  of  Christ 

2.  It  is  certainly  used  for  his  whole  office  as  Redeemer. 

3.  There  are  passages  which  seem  to  imply  that  it  includes 
his  whole  relation  to  God. 

4.  There  are  passages  which  cannot  without  constraint  exclude 
divinity. 

The  question  is  not  of  the  highest  theological  importance. 
It  has  its  chief  dogmatic  importance  in  connection  with  the  dif- 
ficulties on  two  points:  an  inherent  subordination  of  the  Son, 


84  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

and  the  doctrine  of  eternal  generation.  Apart  from  these 
points,  it  is  a  question  of  philology  and  Scriptural  usage  of  the 
terra.  As  a  question  of  philology  and  Scriptural  usage,  it  re- 
duces itself  to  this:  Is  the  term  Son  applied  to  Christ,  or  the 
term  Father  to  the  Father  in  relation  to  Christ,  solely  from  his 
human  or  official  manifestation — or  is  it  applied,  when  this  is 
not  in  view?  Both  sides  allow,  that  now  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
may  be  applied  to  the  whole  divine-human  personality  of  Christ. 
Those  who  say  it  is  derived  from  the  human  manifestation 
originally,  allow  it  afterwards  to  be  applied  to  the  whole  un- 
divided person.  The  others  say,  it  is  applicable  to  Christ's 
original  relation  to  Deity,  and  that  the  human  and  official  usage 
is  but  a  manifestation,  a  revelation  in  a  lower  sphere,  of  an  ante- 
cedent relation. 

Christ  designates  himself  in  Scripture,  by  four  terms: — 
(1)  Man,  (2)  Son  of  Man,  (by  which  not  his  lowliness  but  his 
headship  of  men  is  indicated),  (3)  Messiah — Christ,  (4)  Son  of 
God.  The  question,  then,  comes  to  this:  when  He  calls  himself 
the  Son  of  God,  or  when  He  speaks  of  God  as  his  Father,  does  He 
mean  the  same  thing,  or  refer  to  the  same  relation  that  is  des- 
ignated by  either  of  the  other  terms — man,  Son  of  man,  Messiah; 
or,  does  He  express  another  intimate,  pre-existent,  essential 
relation  ? 

A  preliminary  argument  for  the  latter  position  may  be 
derived  from  this  consideration:  He  calls  God  his  Father,  the 
Father  calls  Him  Son.  Now,  who  is  the  He,  that  is  thus  called? 
It  is  the  person,  Jesus  Christ.  God  is  not  the  Father  of  Christ's 
mere  bodily  humanity;  nor  of  Him  as  bearing  an  office,  but  is 
the  Father  of  the  Son,  of  that  person  who  is  the  Son.  Now, 
that  person,  as  a  personal  being  and  agent,  pre-existed.  He  did 
not  begin  to  be  a  person  when  He  came  into  the  world ;  He  pre- 
existed as  a  distinct  person  from  the  Father,  and  when  He  came 
into  the  world  He  simply  assumed  humanity.  When,  now,  God 
is  called  his  Father,  it  designates,  in  many  cases,  the  intimate 
personal  relation  of  the  two  to  each  other.  It  is  not  the  relation 
of  the  mere  outward  humanity,  nor  of  the  office  to  God;  but  of 
the  person  of  Christ  to  the  person  of  the  Father. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION  85 

(a.)  The  term  Son  of  God  (and  the  correlative,  Father)  is  not 
used  in  Scripture  in  reference  to  Christ  merely  as  a  man.1 

Luke  i.  35.  "  The  angel  answered  and  said  unto  her,  The 
Holy  Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power  of  the  Highest 
shall  overshadow  thee:  therefore  also  that  holy  thing  which  shall 
be  born  of  thee  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God." 

Because  He  was  born  of  God,  He  was  to  be  called  the  Son  of 
God:  He  was  born  of  God  in  a  special  sense.  It  is  used  as  a 
designation  of  a  special  relation  to  God.  That  relation  might 
have  pre-existed  in  another  form:  the  human  (temporal)  mani- 
festation may  have  been  merely  the  revelation  of  it  in  time.  The 
passage  merely  says,  that  because  generated  by  a  direct  and 
special  divine  influence,  He  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God.  He 
is  not  made  the  Son  of'God  thereby,  but  called  such.  His  mi- 
raculous conception  should  lead  men  to  acknowledge  Him  as 
the  Son  of  God:  thus  He  would  be  known  to  be  Immanuel,  Isa. 
vii.  14. 

Besides,  to  interpret  this  name,  Son  of  God,  with  respect  to 
his  being  born  into  the  world  is  contradictory  to  other  passages, 
in  which  it  is  applied  to  Him  under  other  aspects,  e.  </.,  the 
quotations  of  the  passage  in, 

Ps.  ii.  7.  "  Thou  art  my  Son,  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee  " 
(where  VFJ^J  may  be,  "have  I  so  declared  thee,"  i.  e.  to  be  my 
Son): 

Acts  xiii.  33,  "  God  hath  fulfilled  the  same as  it  is  also 

written  in  the  second  psalm,  Thou  art  my  Son,"  etc.  (here  the  sup- 
position that  the  "  declaration "  refers  to  the  resurrection  is 
highly  doubtful:  it  is  rather  to  his  whole  manifestation  that  the 
quotation  is  applied). 

Heb.  i.  5,  6.     "  For  unto  which  of  the  angels  said  He  at  any 

time,  Thou  art  my  Son And  again  when  He  bringeth  the 

first-begotten  into  the  world." 


1  Episcopius  (Theol.  Inst.)  on  the  Person  of  Christ  says,  there  are  four  grounds 
for  Christ's  being  called  Son:  (1)  Conception,  (2)  Mediation,  (3)  Kesurrection, 
(4)  Ascension.  Another  "divine  filiation"  is  not  necessary  to  be  believed. 
Bishop  Bull  met  these  assertions  in  his  "  Judicium  Eccl.  Cath."  1694— his  second 
great  work. 


86  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Heb.  v.  5.  "  Christ  glorified  not  himself  to  be  made  an  high 
priest;  but  He  that  said  unto  Him,  Thou  art  my  Son,"  etc. 

In  these  passages,  the  Sonship  is  referred  to  Christ's  whole 
manifestation  and  work  in  the  world. 

The  sense  is,  Christ  is  declared  or  proved  to  be  the  Son  of 
God,  by  his  whole  work,  here.  He  is  not  made  to  be  such  by 
his  Incarnation,  his  humanity. 

(b.)  Jesus  as  the  Messiah — Christ — is  called  the  Son  of  God: 
but  it  is  not  asserted  that  the  title  Son  of  God  is  given  Him  be- 
cause He  is  the  Messiah.  By  his  works  and  words  He  is  proved 
to  be  the  Son  of  God;  but  it  is  not  proved,  that  that  is  the  reason 
for  so  calling  Him. 

Instances:  John  vi.  69;  Matt.  xvi.  16;  John  xi.  29,  and  many 
others. 

(c.)  There  are  passages  in  which  the  term  Son  seems  to  be 
applied  to  Christ  in  his  divine  nature;  in  his  direct  personal  re- 
lation to  the  Father;  or,  in  respect  to  which  it  is  at  least  doubtful 
whether  it  be  not  so  applied. 

John  i.  14.  "And  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of 
the  only  begotten  of  the  Father." 

This  "  only  begotten  of  the  Father  "  is  undoubtedly  the  Logos. 

John  i.  18.  "  The  only  begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Father,  He  hath  revealed  Him.'* 

John  v.  17.     "My  Father  worketh  hitherto  and  I  work." 

Jesus  here  calls  God  his  Father,  with  respect  to  his  higher 
nature.  The  Jews  so  understood  Him. 

Rom.  viii.  32.  "  He  that  spared  not  His  own  Son."  etc.  (John 
v.  18,  Christ  "  said  also  that  God  was  his  [own]  Father.") 

Matt.  xvi.  16.  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living 
God." 

John  iii.  16  "  For  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  his 
only  begotten  Son." 

Gal.  iv.  4.  "  When  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come  God 
sent  foith  his  Son." 

Johii  xx.  17.  "  I  ascend  unto  my  Father,  and  your  Father ' 
(not  "our  Father"). 

Matt,  xxviii.  19.     The  baptismal  formula. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  87 

(d.)  The  term  Son  is  so  used  in  respect  to  Christ  that  we  can- 
not say  it  excludes,  but  most  naturally  say,  it  includes,  his  divine 
nature,  his  intimate  personal  relation  to  the  Father."  l 

And  even  if  we  get  rid  of  the  application  of  the  term  Son  to 
his  personal  relation  to  God,  yet  the  same  kind  of  relation  is 
hinted  at  by  other  terms  and  phrases,  which  are  applied  to  Him 
in  respect  (probably)  to  his  pre-existent  state. 

The  Logos,  the  Word,  is  that  which  expresses  or  reveals: 
that  in  a  being  whereby  it  is  revealed.  "The  image  of  the  in- 
visible God,  the  firstborn  of  every  creature."  If  the  first  clause 
relates  to  the  historical  Christ,  the  second  points  to  a  different 
origin  from  the  creation,  and  leads  most  naturally  to  the  in- 
ternal relation  of  the  Godhead  which  is  intimated  in  other 
Scriptures. 

So,  the  Son  is  "in  the  form  of  God"  and  "the  brightness 
of  his  glory  and  (^apaHriip  xrfi  vTtotirddews)  the  impression  of  his 
essence." 

The  relation  of  speech  to  the  mind,  of  the  first  (and  peculiarly) 
begotten  to  the  Father,  of  the  brightness  to  the  glory,  of  the 
impression  to  the  seal,  discovers  something  of  the  same  relation 
as  is  designated  by  the  terms  Son  and  Father:  {.  e.,  the  same 
substance  or  essence  in  different  forms. 

§  6.  How  now  are  we  to  conceive  this  relation  as  an  internal  one 
in  the  Godhead? 

Here  is  the  question  and  the  difficulty;  and  here  is  seen  the 
arbitrary  character  of  many  theories. 

The  relation  of  Sonship  is  figurative.  It  cannot  be  taken 
literally,  or  after  the  mode  of  human  fatherhood  and  sonship. 

1  If  we  deny  any  definite  internal  relation  of  dependence  of  the  Son  on  the  Fa- 
ther— a  certain  inequality  (yet  wholly  immanent),  we  are  led  to  an  arbitrary  in- 
terpretation of  some  passages  of  Scripture .  What  is  said  about  the  whole  person 
of  Christ  and  his  total  relation  to  the  Father,  by  himself  and  others,  is  referred 
to  Him  as  a  man  exclusively.  "  My  Father  is  greater  than  I " ;  "I  and  my  Father 
are  one";  if  the  former  of  these  is  spoken  of  Christ's  humanity,  or  official  state 
alone,  so  must  the  latter  be.  It  seems  to  be  forgotten  often  that  it  is  the  same 
person  who  is  speaking  in  the  different  passages;  and  that  what  is  true  of  Him 
as  a  person,  in  His  personal  relation  to  God,  must  be  abiding. 


88  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

The  relation  among  men  denotes  (a.)  priority  of  being  in  the 
father  to  the  son,  in  point  of  time,  (b.)  communication  of  nature 
from  the  one  to  the  other,  in  the  relation  of  antecedent  cause 
to  a  subsequent  effect,  (c.)  consequently  an  absolute  dependence 
for  being  of  the  son  on  the  father.  The  literal  application  of  the 
analogy  would  draw  after  it,  then,  a  denial  of  the  independent 
being,  of  the  self-divinity  of  the  Son.  It  is  an  analogy — the  best 
among  human  relations;  and  to  hold  what  must  be  held  of  the 
eternity  and  independence  of  Christ  we  must  say,  it  is  an  anal- 
ogy which  applies  only  to  the  relation  itself,  not  to  the  mode  in 
which  this  relation  came  to  be. 

It  expresses  the  relation — and  of  the  same  general  kind  as 
the  term  Logos;  there  are  two  persons,  their  relation  to  each 
other  is  like  that  of  the  son  to  the  father,  of  speech  to  the  mind. 

To  arrive  at  a  more  definite  conception  or  form  of  state- 
ment of  this  relation,  we  may  regard  it,  (1)  Negatively  (2) 
Positively. 

1.  Negatively:  Statements  not  authorized: 

(a.)  The  most  common  is,  that  the  Father  communicates  the 
divine  essence  to  the  Son.  John  v.  26,  "  Even  so  hath  he 
given  to  the  Son  to  have  life  m  himself,'  is  commonly  adduced. 
But  this  gift  does  not  probably  refer  to  the  divine  mode  of 
being. 

"The  communication  of  the  divine  essence"  seems  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Father  is  before  the  Son ;  though  the  relation  is 
not  that  of  a  created  being,  yet  it  is  not  eternal. 

(b.)  The  view  which  makes  the  relation  to  be  that  of  em  ana 
tion,  as  a  ray  from  the  sun.  The  old  objection  is  valid;  it  im 
plies  a  division  or  possibility  of  division,  in  the  divine  essence 

2.  Positively: 

(a.)  God  is  not  a  single  individual  person,  like  an  individual 
man,  alongside  of  other  men. 

(b.)  God  is  perpetual  activity — actus  purissimus ;  and  his  eter 
nal  activity  is  not  merely  that  of  attributes  ever  working,  but 
is  that  of  a  three-fold,  internal,  personal  relationship,  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Spirit,  or  as  the  first,  second,  and  third  persons  of  the 
Godhead. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  89 

(c.)  In  the  order  of  interdependence,  though  not  of  time, 
there  is  a  dependence  of  the  second  person,  the  Sen,  upon  the 
first  person,  the  Father,  and  of  the  third  person  upon  both  the 
Father  and  the  Son;  yet  not  so  that  the  Son  is  really  dependent 
upon  the  Father  any  more  than  is  the  Father  upon  the  Son.  It 
is  an  order  of  subsistence,  an  internal  relation.  The  same  di- 
vine essence  and  attributes  exist  eternally  in  this  personal  rela- 
tionship. Any  view  of  the  Trinity  must  concede  a  difference  in 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  in  the  first,  second,  and  third  persons; 
in  short  an  ordo  subsistendi — a  certain  inequality.  Only  in  some 
such  mode  of  representation  can  we  keep  clear  of  annulling  the 
personal  distinctions  in  the  Godhead,  of  reducing  them  to  three, 
distinctions. 

(d.)  There  is  an  eternal  generation,  meaning  the  relation  in 
which  the  Father  and  the  Son  are,  not  how  they  came  to  be. 

By  this,  too,  we  discern  in  the  Godhead  the  same  relationship 
internally  as  that  which  is  externally  revealed. 

The  ground  is  in  the  divinity  itself,  why  it  must  be  revealed 
as  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit;  as  it  is  revealed,  so  it  is,  abstracting 
from  it  the  limitations  of  time  and  space.  This  is  the  fact  with 
regard  to  everything  else:  so  by  analogy  with  the  Godhead. 
There  is  the  same  relation  eternally,  which  in  the  manifestation 
is  revealed.1 


i  Pascal,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister  (cited  in  Vinet,  "  Etudes  sur  Pascal,"  pp.  78-9) 
speaks  thus:  Keferring  to  a  peculiarity  in  retaining  the  knowledge  of  spiritual 
things,  not  by  memory — "though  we  can  as  easily  remember  an  Epistle  of  St. 
Paul  as  a  Book  of  Virgil"— but  in  things  of  grace— "II  faut  que  la  meme  grace, 
qni  peut  seule  en  donner  la  premiere  intelligence,  la  continue  et  la  rende  toujours 
pre'sente  en  la  retra9ant  sans  cesse  dans  le  coeur  des  fideles,  pour  la  faire  toujours 
vivre ;  corcme  dans  les  bien  heureux  Dieu  renouvelle  continuellement  leur  beatitude, 
qui  est  un  effet  et  une  suite  de  la  grace:  comme  aussi  I'dglise  tient  que  le  Pere 
produil  continuellement  le  Fils,  et  maintient  1'eternitd  de  son  essence  par  une  effu- 
sion de  sa  substance,  qui  est  sans  interruption  aussi  bien  que  sans  fin." 

Dr.  E.  S.  Candlish  (in  Introduction  to  "  The 'Eternal  Sonship,"  by  Jas.  Kidd, 
D.D.,  1st  ed.,  1822,  London,  1872,  p.  xlix.)  says:  "The  Trinity  is  a  revealed  fact, 
....  but  is  there  nothing  in  the  laws  of  intelligent  thought,  in  the  essential  con- 
stitution of  the  thinking  mind,  that  responds  to  and  closes  with  the  doctrine  or 
fact  when  presented  to  it,  so  as  to  facilitate  the  acceptance  of  it  by  the  understand- 
ing,  and  give  it  a  place  behind  or  beyond  the  understanding  in  the  deeper  region  of  tht 
soul's  intuitional  perceptions"  Then  he  goes  on  to  say,  substantially:  Before  ere- 


90  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ation  God  was  infinite  and  alone,  He  was  of  infinite  intelligence  and  moral  excel- 
lencies, which  latter  are  essentially  communicative— seeking  objects  of  fellow- 
ship. If  only  one  being  existed  in  all  eternity,  it  must  be  assumed  that  "all 
these  attributes  existed  in  a  state  contrary  to  their  very  nature:  a  state  of  sheer 
passivity,  or  rather  potentiality:  under  the  category  rather  of  the  posse  than  of 
the  esse."  E.  g.,  Love  is  under  "a  necessity  of  communicating  itself  in  grace  and 
glory  to  some  one  to  whom  it  may  say,  I  and  Thou— I  GIVING,  THOU  KECEIVING." 
....  "The  life  of  God  is  love.  He  lives  in  loving  .  .  .  And  his  love  cannot 
be  without  an  object."  ....  "  Here  is  the  precise  difficulty  which  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  fitted  to  solve  "  (p.  lix.) 


PART     II. 

CHEISTIAN    COSMOLOGY. 

We  have  considered  the  proof  of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of 
God;  also  God  as  revealed  in  and  by  the  system  of  Redemption,  as 
Triune,  the  immanent  Trinity  as  the  basis  of  the  economic,  which 
latter  is  found  in  the  whole  subsequent  work  of  God.  We  are  now 
to  pass  from  God  in  himself  to  God  in  his  works,  the  mirror  of 
himself;  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead  are  understood  by  the 
things  that  are  made  (Rom.  i.  20),  and  of  course  are  in  them. 

The  general  title  here  is  Christian  Cosmology,  or,  The  World 
viewed  as  a  Divine  Cosmos  or  Order,  manifesting  the  divine 
glory:  The  immanent  glory  as  seen  in  the  declarative  glory  of 
the  Godhead.  The  subject  of  consideration  here  is  the  Cosmos, 
not  as  seen  in  itself,  as  science  studies  it,  in  detail,  by  induction 
and  generalization,  but  as  seen  in  its  relations  to  God,  to  Re- 
demption, to  the  Christian  system,  to  eternal  life.  For  the  Cos- 
mos is  essentially  the  manifestation  of  God  in  time  and  in  its 
progress  towards  eternity.  It  comes  from  the  eternal  God,  it 
finishes  its  course  and  returns  to  its  source,  perfected,  transformed 
into  an  eternal  kingdom  of  grace  and  glory.  In  God  himself 
there  is  infinite  fulness,  but  that  He  might  manifest  his  glory 
He  brought  into  existence  a  universe,  material,  moral.  In  this 
creation  God  is  revealed,  his  attributes  co-working  to  produce 
the  highest  result  for  infinite  wisdom  and  infinite  love. 

CHAPTER  I. 

CREATOR    AND    CREATION. 

God  is  set  forth  in  Scripture  as  the  author  and  creator  of  the 
world  as  well  as  the  Being  who  sustains  and  carries  it  on.  The 
world  is  to  fulfil  a  good  end,  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  ful- 
ness so  far  as  this  is  possible  in  the  forms  of  space  and  time. 


92  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

§  1.   The  Scripture  represents  God  as  the  Creator  of  the  World. 

It  represents  Him  as  the  cause  of  being,  to  all  that  exists  ad 
extra.  The  ground  and  source  of  all  life  are  in  God.  This  is 
frequently  declared  in  the  Scriptures:  Gen.  i.  1;  Acts  vii.  50; 
Rom.  xi.  36;  1  Cor.  viii.  6;  Eph.  iii.  9;  Heb.  i.  12;  Rev.  iv.  11. 
The  creation  of  particular  parts  of  the  world  is  ascribed  to  the 
divine  power:  Acts  iv.  15;  Heb.  i.  10;  Rev.  x.  6. 

§  2.  The  Scripture  represents  the  Son  of  God  as  the  Medium  by 
whom  the  World  ivas  brought  into  being. 

Col.  i.  15;  John  i.  3;  Heb.  i.  2. — The  Socinian  explanation  of 
Buch  passages  is  that  they  refer  to  the  spiritual  creation  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  but  the  passages  far  surpass  such  interpreta- 
tion. See  Grinfield's  "  Christian  Cosmos,  or  The  Son  of  God  the 
Revealed  Creator." 1 

§  3.  God  created  freely  and  not  by  necessity. 

No  external  or  internal  necessity  for  creation  can  be  supposed, 
certainly  no  external,  for  all  that  is  external  is  the  product  of  the 
divine  act;  nor  any  internal,  excepting  a  necessity  from  the  di- 
vine love,  which  is  moral,  and  not  physical  or  natural.  God  is 
described -in  the  Scripture  as  blessed  and  sufficient  to  himself: 
Acts  xvii.  25;  1  Tim.  i.  11. — This  is  shown  also  by  the  nature 
of  the  case,  if  God  be  an  infinite  and  absolute  Spirit.  In  the 
Scripture,  Creation  is  ascribed  to  the  will  of  God,  of  course 
implying  voluntariness :  Ps.  xxxiii.  6;  Eph.  i.  11;  Heb.  xi.  3; 
Rev.  iv.  11. 

§  4.   Creation  is  not  from  any  previously  extant  substance. 

1 1  was  not  a  modification  of  an  eternal  material.  An  apoc- 
ryphal book,  Wisd.  xi.  17,  speaks  of  creation  as  "  from  formless 
matter,"  but  in  the  Scriptures  God  is  represented  as  the  only 
cause,  producing  by  a  word  and  not  from  extant  material.  All 
things  are  said  to  be  from  Him,  which  implies  that  there  can  be 
no  eternal  substance.  See  Heb.  xi.  3,  the  purport  of  which  is 
that  the  visible  universe  is  not  a  mere  manifestation  of  what  is  in- 

1  He  perhaps  goes  too  far  in  saying  that  this  idea  has  almost  vanished  fVoi.i 
evangelical  preaching;  still  it  is  not  enough  insisted  upon. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     IlEDEMPTION.  93 

visible  but  is  the  product  of  divine  power.  Rom.  iv.  17  contains 
a  strongly  corroborative  expression:  Who  calls  what  is  not 
into  being*  as  if  it  were.1 

Some  of  the  Theories  held  on  this  Subject. 

The  old  theologians  distinguished  between  the  first  and  sec- 
ond act  of  creation :  the  first,  the  creation  from  nothing,  indicated 
in  Gen.  i.  1,  with  the  result  in  the  second  verse;  the  second,  the 
work  of  the  six  days,  bringing  all  into  shape  'and  order  and 
implying,  what  is  perhaps  correct,  a  distinction  between  the 
creation  of  the  prime  material  and  its  specific  arrangement 
and  organization.  This  is  found  also  in  some  of  the  heathen 
cosmogonies,  although  it  is  a  matter  of  doubt  whether  they  held 
matter  to  be  eternal.  In  Plato  this  is  disputed.  The  New  Pla- 
tonists  were  dualists,  holding  to  the  eternity  of  matter.  As 
the  question  is  now  raised  there  are  several  theories. 

The  first  theory.  That  there  was  a  primitive  or  original 
matter  having  its  laws,  which  is  developed  into  the  worlds  and 
all  the  orders  of  life  in  them,  through  the  gradations  of  gas, 
fire,  etc.,  the  forces  of  the  planets  and  their  rotation,  the  geological 
stadia  of  the  earth's  progress,  and  then  the  orders  of  plants  and 
animals  up  to  man — all  developed  out  of  an  original  matter. — 
The  questions  which  this  theory  does  not  answer  are :  Whence 
the  matter  and  whence  its  laws?  Whence  is  the  order  of  crea- 
tion, and  what  is  it  ?  There  cannot  be  anything  in  the  effect 
which  is  not  in  the  cause.  If  from  the  cause  sprang  life,  instinct, 
organization,  intelligence,  reason,  person,  and  personal  being, 
then  in  the  cause  there  must  have  been  at  least  as  much,  and 
therefore  the  primitive  matter  must  have  been  a  matter  having 
intelligence  and  personality,  which  is  an  extraordinary  kind  of 
matter. 

The  second  theory.  Spirit  and  not  matter  is  primitive; 
spirit,  not  as  conscious,  intelligent  spirit,  but  in  a  generalized 
abstract  sense,  as  containing  all  the  laws  and  ideas  out  of  which 
matter  is  developed.  This  becomes  external  to  itself,  and  is 
developed  into  all  the  forms  of  the  created  universe.  This 
theory  may  be  either  pantheistic  or  pantheistico-theistic,  ac- 
1  Compare  this  with  2  Mace.  vii.  28. 


94  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

cording  as  spirit  is  viewed  as  having  self-consciousness  or  not. 
If  viewed  pantheistically  the  prime  objection  to  it  is  that  we 
cannot  derive  from  it  any  explanation  of  the  mind  in  the  uni- 
verse. How  can  the  abstract  produce  the  concrete  ?  How  can 
an  idea  bring  into  being  an  animal,  by  its  own  force  as  an  idea  ? 
If  it  cannot,  the  theory  will  not  explain  the  works  of  creation. 
The  other  form,  that  spirit  is  primitive  and  all  else  is  an  emana- 
tion from  it,  is  pantheistico-theistic.  It  allows  that  the  intelli- 
gence which  is  disclosed  in  nature  is  divine,  but  says  that  there 
is  likewise  in  the  divine  Being  a  kind  of  material  out  of  which 
the  worlds  were  formed,  the  mode  of  development,  however, 
never  having  been  explained.  This  is  the  emanation  theory  of 
some  German  philosophers,  and  it  is  akin  to  the  theory  next 
to  be  mentioned. 

The  third  theory.  That  God  is  a  self-conscious  Being, 
having  an  antagonism  in  himself,  which  is  called  "the  nature 
in  God."  This  develops  itself  in  the  forms  of  the  finite  and 
material.  Space  and  time,  in  their  finite  measures,  existed  as 
really  for  God  as  for  ourselves.  In  God  there  is  a  kind  of  finite 
material  out  of  which  the  worlds  were  made. 

The  fourth  theory.  That  which  alone  is  primitive  is  God, 
the  infinite,  absolute,  and  personal  Spirit,  and  all  that  is  in  being 
is  the  product 'of  his  power.  In  Him,  however,  in  his  being  and 
attributes,  there  was  always  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of 
a  finite  and  dependent  universe.  In  his  love  lies  the  impulse 
to  producing  such  a  universe;  in  his  will,  the  power  of  bringing 
it  into  being.  That  which  was  previous  to  creation  in  God 
was  the  possibility  of  its  existence  and  also  the  idea  of  the 
world  or  the  plan  of  the  whole  world  from  eternity.  That  was  the 
archetype  of  the  world,  and  it  is  this  ideal  world  which  is  real- 
ized in  a  created  universe.  In  creation  God  brings  into  being 
that  which  was  not,  as  far  as  force  or  material  are  concerned. 
Although  this  was  always  in  the  divine  mind,  and  in  that  sense 
eternal,  yet  as  actually  existing  it  came  into  being  through  the 
divine  will.  The  purport  of  this  theory,  in  relation  to  the  others, 
may  be  shown  by  two  or  three  considerations,  (a.)  It  implies 
that  the  substance  of  the  created  universe  is  not  that  of  the 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  95 

divine  nature.  The  substance  of  the  created  universe  as  ma- 
terial  is  radically  different  from  the  divine  essence ;  in  the  quali- 
ties of  impenetrability  and  attractive  force,  in  the  qualities  which 
make  the  atom  and  form  the  play  of  forces  neither  of  which 
can  be  supposed  to  be  existing  in  a  spiritual  and  eternal  essence; 
and  therefore  the  universe  must  be  absolutely  different  from 
God.  We  must  distinguish  in  creation  between  the  matter 
(the  element  or  atoms)  and  the  forces.  Both  of  these  are  entirely 
distinct  from  anything  that  can  be  in  Deity.  Thus,  that  which 
is  absolutely  new  in  the  creation,  which  was  not  there  before,  is 
the  existing  of  these  material  atoms  and  forces,  in  the  forms  of 
space  and  time. 

§  5.    The  Belation  of  God  as  Creator  to  wliat  He  has  created. 

The  Scripture  view  is  that  God  is  exalted  above  the  world, 
yet  present  in  it  by  his  works,  is  both  transcendent  and  imma- 
nent, far  surpassing  the  universe,  yet  dwelling  and  working  in 
it.  He  exists  in  one  way  in  nature,  and  in  another  in  man ;  is 
related  in  one  way  to  the  heathen,  and  in  another  to  his  people 
the  Israelites;  is  revealed  in  one  method  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  in  a  closer  relation  in  the  New.  He  dwells  among 
his  people  and  sets  his  tabernacle  among  them.  The  humble 
and  contrite  heart  He  will  not  despise.  Those  who  love  Him 
become  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  These  different  relations 
are  in  accordance  with  the  different  characteristics  of  the  objects 
which  He  has  brought  into  being.  Especially  is  God's  relation 
different  to  the  good  and  to  the  bad.  Heaven  is  his  peculiar 
place  of  blessing.  In  the  realm  of  despair,  He  works  only  in 
punishing.  The  omnipresence  of  God  of  course  extends  to  the 
bounds  of  space  and  time,  but  the  presence  of  God,  in  his  special 
workings,  is  according  to  the  nature  of  the  objects  which  He 
works  upon. 

§  6.  The  Scripture  represents  Creation  as  a  Plan  and  not  as  a 
Development. 

Creation  is  not  a  development  in  the  sense  of  the  "Vestiges 
of  Creation/'  It  is  a  plan  in  which  all  the  parts  are  connected 


96  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

All  of  it  is  to  reveal  the  divine  glory.  The  great  end  of  God  is 
the  manifestation  of  his  fulness,  his  wisdom  and  power,  in  a  cre- 
ated world,  and  all  the  universe  is  made  upon  one  plan  with  ref- 
erence to  that,  with  its  regular  orders  and  stages:  which  are  set 
forth  even  in  the  first  account  of  creation,  that  of  the  six  days, 
where  there  is  a  regular  and  philosophical  order  in  which  the 
objects  are  brought  into  being,  beginning  with  the  lowest  in 
the  scale,  and  ascending  to  man.  We  have  first,  the  ele- 
ments, secondly,  the  vegetable  kingdom,  thirdly,  the  animal 
kingdom,  ending  fourthly,  in  man;  but  this  is  not  an  order 
or  plan  which  has  a  development,  in  such  a  sense  that  the 
higher  springs  out  of  the  lower.  The  unity  of  the  plan  is 
made  by  its  being  one  in  the  divine  mind.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  there  can  be  a  passage  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
order,  or  from  the  inanimate  to  the  animate. 


CHAPTER  II. 

OF  THE  CREATED  UNIVERSE  AS  SET  FORTH  IN  SCRIPTURE. 

It  is  designated  by  different  names:  the  Creation,  as  having 
its  origin  in  God ;  the  Cosmos,  as  exhibiting  a  fair  order ;  the 
jEons,  as  having  its  being  in  time.  It  is  described  as  having 
a  real  being  of  its  own,  not  a  mere  seeming,  as  held  by  some 
philosophers.  The  finite  universe  is  not  a  perpetual  creation, 
but  consists  of  proper  second  causes:  Heb.  iv.  3.  Each  partic- 
ular order  has  its  proper  functions  and  office,  its  distinct  char- 
acter: 1  Cor.  xv.  38,  "To  each  seed  its  own  body,"  implies  a 
distinction  in  the  natural  characteristics.  While  Scripture  repre- 
sents that  there  are  different  spheres  of  creation,  different  parts 
of  the  universe,  it  represents  them  as  all  having  respect  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Heaven,  earth,  and  hell  are  the  chief  divi- 
sions, and  all  are  named  and  described  as  being  a  part  of  one 
plan,  the  whole  object  of  which  is  to  illustrate  the  divine  glory. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  9? 

Under  this  point  of  view  the  Scriptural  representation  is  much 
higher  than  that  of  natural  science.  The  conception  of  unity 
given  here  is  much  higher  than  the  sciences  have  been  able  to 
attain.  The  two  parts  of  the  world,  in  the  general  description 
of  them  given  in  Scripture,  are  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  the 
relation  of  above  and  below  being  that  which  is  generally  im- 
plied :  the  heavens  being  the  invisible,  and  the  earth  the  visible 
(Col.  i.  1G);  the  earth  being  for  a  time,  the  heavens  for  eternity. 
Yet  the  earth  is  to  become  heaven  (Rev.  xxi.):  they  are  sepa- 
rated now  for  a  time  in  order  to  a  reunion,  against  the  time 
when  the  Bride  shall  be  prepared  to  meet  the  Bridegroom  at 
his  coming.  Earthly  things  thus  become  an  image  of  heavenly 
things,  (a.)  Heaven  is  the  place  in  which  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  fully  realized,  where  unfallen  and  redeemed  spirits  abide  and 
in  which  God  dwells  and  is  perfectly  revealed :  the  Father's  house 
in  which  are  many  mansions,  with  which  the  name  of  God  as 
our  heavenly  Father  accords.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  called 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  reference  to  its  moral  character  and 
also  to  its  ultimate  destination ;  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  having 
dwelt  in  heaven  and  as  having  returned  thither.  In  it  are  dif- 
ferent degrees  or  mansions.  Christ  has  ascended  above  all  the 
heavens.  Paul  speaks  of  having  been  caught  up  to  the  third 
heaven.  (6.)  Earth  is  that  portion  of  the  universe  in  which 
fallen  humanity  dwells,  and  where  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not 
yet  fully  realized.  It  is  to  be  transformed,  and  the  seeds  of 
heaven  are  found  even  here:  Heb.  vi.  5:  "The  powers  of  the 
world  (or  age)  to  come  "  are  already  at  work.  The  earth  is  to 
pass  through  a  process  of  change  arid  redemption.  Such  a  pro- 
cess is  probably  set  forth  in  Rom.  viii.  20,  21.  The  word  "  creature  " 
here  appears  to  mean  the  whole  physical  universe,  and  this  is 
described  as  in  sympathy  with  redemption  and  destined  to  share 
in  the  redemption  when  completed.  2  Pet.  iii.  10  gives  further 
indications  of  the  same  destiny,  (c.)  The  other  grand  portion 
of  the  universe  is  the  under- world,  Hades,  the  world  of  departed 
spirits.  This  is  represented  as  being  under  the  earth.  There 
are  two  main  divisions  of  it:  Paradise  (Luke  xxiii.  43),  a  place 
for  the  departed  good,  called  also  Abraham's  bosom  (Luke  xvi. 


98  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

27);  and  the  prison  (1  Pet.  iii.  19),  the  place  where  the  evil  are 
kept,  which  at  last  becomes  the  Gehenna,1  the  hell,  the  lake  of 
fire,  denoting  the  place  of  final  torment  to  which  the  wicked 
are  condemned  along  with  the  devil  and  his  angels. 


CHAPTER    III. 

OP    THE    DIFFERENT     ORDERS    OF    CREATED    BEINGS. 

The  creation  is  represented  as  having  different  orders  of 
animated  beings,  not  a  series  in  development,  but  a  series 
in  a  plan,  constantly  ascending  to  man,  the  highest.  Be- 
tween man  and  God  there  are  other  orders  of  beings.  The 
Scriptures  reveal  the  existence  of  angels,  making  another 
scale  of  ascents.  These  are  sometimes  called  the  sons  of 
God.  As  far  as  any  distinct  revelation  guides  us,  we  are 
constrained  to  think  of  these  as  spiritual  beings.  It'  they 
have  any  body  at  all,  it  must  be  what  is  termed  a  spiritual 
body,  not  partaking  of  flesh  and  blood;  and  apparently  they 
are  not  so  far  subject  to  the  restrictions  of  space  and  time  as 
men  are.  There  is  no  evidence  that  they  belong  to  any  order 
of  beings  that  grows  from  small  to  large.  It  appears  that 
what  they  are  at  creation,  that  they  remain.  Their  power 
is  superior  to  that  of  human  beings,  yet  subordinate  to  that 
of  God ;  working  through  second  causes  and  not  above  them  ; 
and  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  can  have  any  immediate  in- 
fluence upon  human  souls:  at  any  rate  this  is  not  directly 
asserted.  Probably  their  influence  is  limited  to  working 
through  and  by  second  causes,  and  thus  they  must  work 
according  to  established  laws.  They  are  described  as  ap- 
pearing for  the  most  part  at  the  great  epochs  of  the  world; 
at  the  creation,  the  giving  of  the  law,  the  Incarnation,  and 
the  scenes  of  the  final  judgment.  That  there  are  some  orders 

1  Dr.  Campbell,  in  his  "Introd.  to  the  Four  Gospels,"  has  one  of  the  best 
essays  in  respect  to  the  Jewish  views  as  to  Gehenna,  etc. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  99 

among  them  is  implied  in  Col.  ii.  10,  and  other  passages, 
but  we  have  nothing  more  definite  than  the  general  desig- 
nations, " principalities  and  powers,"  "thrones  and  dominions." 
A  few  names  of  angels  are  given.  The  good  angels  are  de- 
scribed as  angels  of  light,  as  employed  in  the  service  of 
God,  as  ministering  in  some  respects  to  man,  and  in  one  pas- 
sage as  having  some  particular  relation  to  children  (Matt, 
xviii.  10). 

As  to  the  evil  angels.  (1)  If  there  are  angels,  there  may  be 
evil  angels.  If  there  may  be  spiritual  beings  of  purity,  there 
may  be  spiritual  beings  impure,  sinful,  and  evil.  The  evidence 
that  such  beings  do  exist,  rests  solely,  of  course,  on  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Bible.  From  a  priori  reasoning  we  could  make 
no  inference  except  the  possibility  of  their  existence.  The  fact 
of  their  existence  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  Scriptures.  Speci- 
mens of  the  Scripture  testimony  are  1  Tim.  iii.  16;  Jude  6;  2  Pet. 
ii.  4.  It  appears  from  the  passages  cited  that  these  angels 
were  not  originally  evil.  They  became  such.1  (2)  The  Script- 
ure representation  of  the  character  of  the  evil  angels.  The 
love  of  evil  is  rooted  in  them.  They  rejoice  in  the  destruction 
of  others.  1  Pet.  v.  8.  Works  of  deceit,  fraud,  temptation 
to  sin,  and  malignity  are  ascribed  to  them,  as  seen  in  the 
names,  Adversary,  Accuser,  The  Evil  One,  The  Destroyer. 
In  them  probably  evil  has  reached  its  height,  so  that  the 
love  of  sin  is  paramount  even  when  it  is  known  to  be  folly. 
(3)  The  Scripture  represents  that  the  evil  angels  together  form 
a  kingdom  or  organization:  Eph.  ii.  2;  vi.  12.  Elsewhere, 
the  prince  of  demons,  of  the  power  of  the  air,  the  devil  with 
his  angels,  is  spoken  of,  so  that  in  such  designations  we 
have  the  intimations  of  an  order.  (4)  The  power  of  these 
evil  spirits  is  described  as  extending  to  spiritual  solicitations 
and  also  to  influences  upon  the  body.  Satan  binds  the  mind 
and  ensnares.  "The  Devilish  wisdom"  is  spoken  of;  this  power 
is  controlled,  but  it  is  a  power  appealing  to  men's  evil  passions 
and  moving  them  by  wicked  motives.  The  power  over  the 

1  The  "sons  of  Go:l,"  in  Gen.  vi.  2,  are  most  probably  the  purer  port  of 
caankind,  and  not  angels  as  some  writers  would  suggest-. 


100  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

body  comes  out  in  the  Demoniacal  Possessions.  The  reality 
of  these  possessions  cannot  be  given  up  without  giving  up 
the  historical  verity  of  Scripture.  That  there  are  forms  of 
disease  now  something  like  these  is  undoubtedly  true,  such 
as  lunacy  and  epilepsy,  but  this  does  not  show  that  all  these 
phenomena  are  connected  solely  with  bodily  causes.  Epilepsy 
may  be  the  result  of  a  violent  conflict  of  passion.  The  phe- 
nomena of  epilepsy  and  lunacy  may  have  occurred  in  con- 
nection with  demoniacal  possessions.  That  they  did  rests  solely 
upon  Scriptural  evidence.  We  cannot  now  show  that  there 
are  cases  of  possession,  and  science  is  unable  to  prove  them 
impossible.  It  may  be  that  our  Saviour's  great  work  in  sub- 
duing them  was  such  that  the  power  of  these  possessions 
should  be  paralyzed  for  the  future.  That  there  was  a  conflict 
with  the  power  of  evil,  and  that  Christ  broke  that  power, 
is  evident  from  Scripture,  and  it  may  be  that  this  was  one 
of  the  cases. 

The  chief  objections  to  this  doctrine  of  the  reality  of  evil 
spirits  are  presented  by  Schleiermacher.  He  objects  to  the 
whole  doctrine  of  the  Devil  as  inconceivable,  as  not  to  be 
thought  consistently,  and  therefore  reduces  it  to  a  personifica- 
tion, placing  it  among  the  mythical  elements  of  Scripture, 
on  the  following  grounds: 

1.  That  the  .fall  of  Satan  and  his  host,  whether  they  fell 
together  or  separately,  is  inconceivable,  because  no  motive  can 
be   assigned   which   would    not    presuppose    the   fall    already 
accomplished.     Reply.     This  lies  against  the  case  of  every  first 
sin  in  every  creature,  and  would  prove  that  there  could  not 
be  any  first  sin. 

2.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  fall  of  Satan  in  con- 
nection with  such  high  intellectual  endowments  and  knowl- 
edge   as    must    be    assigned    to    him !      Reply.      We    do    not 
know   how   much   Satan   knew.     We.   know  that   he   was   not 
omniscient.     We  do  not  know  whether  he  himself  knew  all 
the  consequences  of  sin.     But  even  if  he  did  know,  that  is 
no  reason  why  he  might  not  have  fallen.     In  every  creature 
the  knowledge  of  the  evil  consequences  of  sin  is  such   that 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REI/jeMPTlON^/  K  \  J>\  '.  /10J 


if  that  knowledge  were  followed  there  would  be  no  sin.  Hu- 
man beings  know  that  when  they  sin  they  are  exposing  them* 
selves  to  wretchedness,  and  yet  they  sin.  No  cue  can  say 
but  that  there  might  have  been  such  knowledge  as  Satan 
had,  and  still  he  would  have  fallen. 

3.  It  is  inconceivable  that  Satan  should  have  parted  with 
this  knowledge  by  an  act  of  the  will;  that  the  will  in  surrender- 
ing itself  to  sin  should  be  the  means  of  blinding  the  intellect. 
Eeply.     It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  all  sin  and  evil  that  they 
carry  the  soul  away  in  opposition  to  light  and  knowledge.     The 
knowledge  may  exist,  and  the  will  be  still  perverse.     The  reply 
under  the  second  head  applies  here  also. 

4.  Some  fall  while  others  do  not.  —  This  is  no  real  objection. 

5.  Such  a  being  could  not  hope  to  relieve  his  misery  by  con- 
stant hostility  to  God,   and  yet  he  engages  in  such  hostility 
knowing  that  it  will  only  increase  his  wretchedness.     Reply. 
Satan  in  this  respect  is  like  all  who  sin.     Every  sinner  knows 
that  in  the  end  he  must  succumb,  and  yet  he  sins.     All  sin  is 
folly  in  its  very  nature.1 

Another  objection  may  be  mentioned,  viz.,  that  the  Scriptural 
representations  of  the  Devil's  power  are  dangerous:  that  it  is 
dangerous  in  a  public  teacher  to  say  much  about  this.  —  If  this 
be  true,  and  the  Scriptures  are  truly  from  God,  it  is  wonderful 
that  they  should  contain  such  representations.  There  cannot 
be  any  danger  in  using  Scriptural  revelations  in  the  Scriptural 
sense.  The  chief  danger  has  been  not  in  taking  Scripture,  but 
rather  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost,"  as  our  standard.  Whatever  be 
the  amount  of  Satan's  power,  it  is  all  subject  to  God's  power,  and 
Satan  can  never  overcome  the  soul  that  trusts  in  God. 

Observation.  We  should  guard  ourselves  against  teaching 
the  ubiquity  of  Satan.  There  may  be  evil  influences  widely  dis- 
persed, but  that  the  Devil  has  ubiquity  is  not  contained  in  the 
Scripture.  —  Also  we  should  note  the  difference  between  Scripture 
and  other  pretended  sources  in  regard  to  details  of  the  spiritual 
world.  The  Scriptures  give  simply  intimations,  while  fanatics 
and  pretenders  enter  into  minute  particulars. 

'  See  Twesten's  "Doct.  of  Angels,"  Bib.  Sac.  I.  792. 


102   >       '*.'•:  V     -  -CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   PRESERVATION   OF   CREATION. 

By  preservation  is  meant  a  continuance  in  being  by  God's 
omnipresent  agency  of  what  has  been  brought  into  being  by 
God's  omnipotence,  including  of  course  the  preservation  of  the  sub- 
stance and  the  qualities  and  the  powers  of  each  individual  thing. 
There  are  various  theories  of  the  Preservation.  Some  represent  it 
as  a  continued  creation.  Others  view  it  as  mechanical  continu- 
ance. A  mechanic  makes  a  machine,  and  leaves  it  to  work 
through  its  own  properties;  preservation  here  is  simply  non- 
interference. Limborch,  the  chief  Arminian  theologian,  says 
that  preservation  is  simply  not  annihilating.  Others  represent 
it  as  a  continual  influx  of  God,  by  a  substantial  omnipresence, 
so  that  God  is  in  everything  by  his  essence.  Calvin  has  some 
strong  expressions  upon  this  subject :  he  says,  God  is  everywhere 
present  by  illapse  and  influx,  terms  which  would  be  understood 
now  as  having  almost  a  pantheistic  sense. 

§  1..  Sources  of  the  Proof  of  the  Doctrine. 

From  the  divine  attributes  in  their  necessary  working,  Pres- 
ervation might  be  inferred.  Omnipresence,  Omnipotence,  and 
Wisdom,  exerted  in  reference  to  a  world  brought  into  being,  in- 
volve a  divine  energy  continuing  it  in  existence.  It  may  also  be 
said  that  the  world  being  the  product  of  divine  omnipotence 
must  be  continued  in  being  by  the  same  power  or  fall  into  an- 
nihilation. Otherwise  the  world  would  have  the  principle  of  its 
being  in  itself.  Again,  God  having  produced  the  world,  his 
wisdom  and  love  would  of  course  prompt  Him  to  continue  it  in 
existence.  The  Scriptures  set  forth  God's  preservation  of  what 
He  has  made  in  passages  such  as  the  following:  Acts  xvii.  28; 
Ps.  xxxvi.  6;  Neh.  ix.  6;  Ps.  Ixvi.  9.  Christ  is  revealed  as  the 
Preserver  as  well  as  Creator:  Col.  i.  17;  Heb.  i.  3. 

§  2.   The  Purport  of  the  Doctrine. 

1.  It  recognizes  what  is  true  in  the  other  theories,  the  theory 
of  continual  creation  and  the  mechanical  theory,  without  im- 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  103 

plying  the  denial  which  is  implied  in  them,  viz.,  in  the  one  case, 
of  proper  second  causes,  and  in  the  other,  of  a  continued  de- 
pendence of  the  world  upon  its  author. 

2.  This  doctrine  farther  maintains  and  insists  upon  the  real 
presence  of  God  in  all  his  works,  operative,  upholding,  and  guid- 
ing all  things  for  his  own  purpose  and  plan.     It  asserts  a  real 
operative  presence,  and  does  not  deny  a  substantial  presence. 

3.  The  proper  theory  of  preservation  also  allows   the  real 
existence  of  second  causes,  while  still  insisting  that  these  are 
kept  in  being  and  upheld  by  the  great  First  Cause.     They  are 
proper  causes  in  themselves,  and  have  a  proper  mode  of  activity 
and  being,  but  not  as  separate  from  God.     All  experience  proves 
the  existence  of  these  causes.     They  are  not  modes  of  action  of 
the  great  First  Cause,  but  proper  second  causes  sustained  by  the 
First  Cause.     This  view  alone  is  consistent  with  God's  making 
real  responsible  agents,  who  must  yet  recognize  their  depend- 
ence on  God. 

§  3.   Theory  of  continued  Creation. 

This  theory  asserts  that  the  same  divine  creative  power  which 
was  at  work  in  the  first  instance  is  ever  at  work,  producing  all 
things  by  an  omnipotent  energy  at  each  instant.  It  of  course 
involves  a  denial  of  any  real  subsistence  in  the  things  them- 
selves. It  is  the  creative  omnipotence  which  is  the  upholding 
omnipotence. 

That  the  creative  omnipotence  does-uphold  is  undeniable,  but 
that  the  creative  and  upholding  omnipotence  are  the  same,  rests 
on  no  valid  ground  of  evidence.  This  position  has  been  taken 
by  some  of  the  New  England  divines  of  the  strictest  Hopkinsian 
cast,  suggested  no  doubt  by  the  speculations  of  Berkeley,  who 
held  that  the  external  world  had  no  real  proper  being,  but  con- 
sisted of  ideas,  which  were  constantly  produced  by  the  divine 
power,  and  had  their  origin  only  in  the  divine  mind.  This  in- 
volves of  course  the  position  that  there  is  no  real  substance  be- 
hind the  phenomena.1 

i  The  Divine  Efficiency  scheme  of  Dr.  Emmons  is  but  a  modification  of  the  same 
Berkeleian  position,  being  Berkeley's  principle  applied  to  the  inner  acts  of  the  mind 
as  well  as  to  the  ideas  of  what  is  outward. 


104  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

The  Objections  to  this  Theory. 

1.  It  is  against  our  native  belief  in  the  existence,  external 
to  us,  of  real,  proper  substances.     This  is  a  belief  of  which  we 
cannot  divest  ourselves. 

2.  If  carried  out  logically,  the  theory  would  lead  to  the  po- 
sition that  God  is  the  only  real  being,  and  that  all  besides  has 
merely  phenomenal  being  without  reality;  and  so  we  should  be 
brought  to  pantheism. 

3.  In  the  same  manner  the  theory  runs  athwart  another  of 
our  beliefs,  that  of  a  proper  causal  action,  the  connection  of 
cause  and  effect,  which  is  certified  by  reason.     It  asserts  that 
God  is  the  only  causality.     Second  causes  are  denied. 

4  It  is  against  the  tone  and  general  representations  of  Script- 
ure, which  represents  creation  as  completed :  Gen  ii.  1,  2 ;  Heb. 
iv.  3. 

§  4.  A  Modification  of  the  Theory  of  continued  Creation. 

This  modification  is  found  among  the  Scholastics,  in  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  in  some  of  the  Reformed  and  Lutheran  divines. 
Acknowledging  the  real  existence  of  finite  substances,  that 
there  is  a  real  proper  substance  beneath  the  phenomena,  the 
theory  denies  any  efficiency  to  this,  tracing  the  efficiency  to  God. 
It  confesses  that  there  is  an  underlying  substratum  which  is 
the  ground  of  the  phenomena,  but  all  the  activity  of  the  phe- 
nomena is  ascribed  to  a  divine  influence.  Newton,  in  one  of  his 
speculations,  comes  nearly  to  this,  saying  that  the  laws  of  the 
material  universe  are  the  stated  modes  of  the  divine  operations. 
All  who  deny  proper  second  causes  stand  here.1  This  same  gen- 
eral view  is  found  in  the  Cartesian  philosophy,  and  is  there  called 
Occasionalism,  which  represents  God  as  producing  the  activities 
of  body  and  soul  correlatively  to  each  other. 

The  Objections  to  this  Theory. 

1.  Like  the  previous  one  it  contradicts  our  experience,  our 
native  belief— not  now  in  the  existence  of  substance,  but — in  the 
existence  of  causes  in  nature.  What  we  perceive  in  nature,  ac- 
cording to  this  view,  must  be  not  the  phenomena  of  matter,  but 
»  Dr.  Woods  borders  on  this.  Works,  Vol.  ii.  20. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  105 

the  phenomena  of  God,  God  working.  In  thus  resolving  ail 
activity  into  a  mode  of  Divine  operation  the  theory  tends  to  a 
pantheistic  conclusion. 

2.  As  applied  to  mind  and  moral  agency,  the  theory  is  in  con- 
flict with  our  conviction  that  we  are  proper  causes,  the  proper 
authors  of  our  own  acts,   Which  we  know  by  immediate  con- 
sciousness, if  we  know  anything.     We  know  that  we  choose  and 
decide,  and  do  it  by  our  proper  power,  and  yet  this  theory  would 
compel  us  to  say  that  these  acts  are  modes  of  the  Divine  agency, 
and  would  thus  annul  moral  agency. 

3.  In  doing  this  it  would  of  course  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  God  is  the  author  of  sin,  because  all  causality  is  traced  back 
to  Him,  and  this  annuls  the  idea  of  God  as  a  holy  being. 

4.  While  there  is  no   evidence   that  there  are  not  second 
causes,  there  is  very  much  evidence  that  there  are  such.     They 
are  not  independent  of  Deity,  but  have  a  proper  sphere  of  their 
own.     The  theory  rests  on  the  underlying  notion  that  there  is 
only  one  cause;  but  if  there  is  only  one  cause  there  is  only  one 
substance,  and  pantheism  is  the  only  theory. 

§  5.   The  Mechanical  Theory  of  Preservation. 

This  is,  that  God  has  brought  into  being  the  world  and  all 
that  is  in  it,  and  then  sustains  it  without  any  constant  agency 
or  personal  direction  and  care.  This  was  the  general  view  of 
the  Arminians,  also  of  the  Deists  in  England  and  on  the 
Continent. 

The  objections  are:  (1)  It  makes  the  creation  to  be  virtually 
independent  of  God.  After  his  works  are  once  brought  into 
being,  they  subsist  by  their  own  power,  work  by  their  own 
efficiency.  Thus  this  view  is  opposed  to  the  truth  of  God's 
omnipresence,  and  it  is  also  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  God's 
Providence,  which  comes  presently  to  be  considered.  (2)  If 
the  view  be  carried  through  and  acted  upon  consistently,  there 
cannot  be  any  prayer.  Religion  expressing  desire  in  prayer 
would  be  impossible,  and  thus  the  theory  runs  counter  to  the 
Scriptures  and  to  Christian  consciousness. 


106  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  V. 

DIVINE    PROVIDENCE. 

§  1.   General  Statements  in  respect  lo  the  Doctrine. 

The  "Westminster  Confession,"  Chapter  V.,  gives  the  main 
points  of  the  doctrine  in  a  full  and  clear  manner,  viz.,  (§  1) 
"  God,  the  great  Creator  of  all  things,  doth  uphold,  direct,  dis- 
pose and  govern  all  creatures,  actions  and  things,  from  the 
greatest  even  to  the  least,  by  his  most  wise  and  holy  provi- 
dence, according  to  his  infallible  foreknowledge,  and  the  free 
and  immutable  counsel  of  his  own  will,  to  the  praise  of  the 
glory  of  his  wisdom,  power,  justice,  goodness  and  mercy." 
(§  2)  "  Although  ....  all  things  come  to  pass  immutably 
and  infallibly;  yet,  by  the  same  providence,  He  ordereth  them 
to  fall  out  according  to  the  nature  of  second  causes,  either 
necessarily,  freely  or  contingently."  This  providence  extends 
likewise  to  sin,  (§4)  "-.'....  not  by  a  bare  permission,  but 
such  as  hath  joined  with  it  a  most  wise  and  powerful  bound- 
ing,  and  otherwise  ordering  and  governing  of  them  [his  crea- 
tures], in  a  manifold  dispensation,  to  his  own  holy  ends;  yet 
so  as  the  sinfulness  thereof  proceedeth  only  from  the  creature, 
and  not  from  God;  who  being  most  holy  and  righteous,  neither 
is  nor  can  be  the  author  or  approver  of  sin." 

The  acts  of  Divine  Providence  are  divided  by  theologians 
into  immanent  and  transeunt,  the  immanent  being  the  foreknowl- 
edge and  purpose  of  God,  and  the  transeunt  the  execution  of 
this  purpose  through  and  by  his  creatures.  Providence  is  di- 
vided also  in  respect  to  its  objects,  into  general,  as  having  re- 
spect to  all;  special,  having  respect  to  man  and  his  destiny;  and 
most  special,  having  respect  to  the  good  or  to  the  bringing 
about  the  supremacy  of  holiness  in  the  divine  dominion. 

The  doctrine  of  Divine  Providence  includes  the  following 
particulars : 

1.  It  supposes  or  presupposes  the  carrying  into  execution 
of  a  divine  purpose  or  plan  in  the  world,  which  God  has  brought 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  107 

into  being.  God's  agency  in  the  world  is  in  order  that  his  prov- 
idence or  plans  may  be  consummated.  This  is  the  terminus  ad 
quern,  and  in  doing  this  all  the  divine  attributes  concur.  God's 
power,  wisdom,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth  are  all  in- 
volved in  his  bringing  about  this  end  by  his  providence. 

2.  The  doctrine  further  asserts  that  to  promote  and  execute 
this  plan,  God's  government  extends  to  each  and  all.     Every- 
thing in  the  world  may  be  viewed  in  reference  to  this  end,  ail 
being  subordinate  means  to  this  general  purpose. 

3.  The  doctrine  further  asserts  that  God  governs  each  thing 
and  all  things  that  He  has  made,  according  to  their  respective 
natures:  that  the  Providence  in  respect  to  the  animal  and  vege- 
table kingdom  is  one  thing,  and  in  respect  to  moral  agents  is 
another,  is  a  moral  government  carried  out  in  God's  direction  of 
his  moral  creatures. 

4.  It  still  further  implies  that  God  treats  men  as  moral  agents, 
governs  and  guides  them  according  to  their  character  as  good 
or  bad ;  that  the  divine  providence  is  different  in  the  good  from 
what  it  is  in  the  evil,  i.  e.,  that  it  acts  in  a  different  mode. 

5.  Moreover,  by  the  very  statement  of  the  doctrine  it  is  im- 
plied that  the  natural  world  is  in  order  to  the  moral;  that  God 
directs  the  ends  of  nature  not  to  subserve  natural  results  but  to 
promote  the  divine  plans,  and  thus  nature  is  ever  subordinate  to 
the  divine  kingdom. 

6.  It  is  involved  in  this  that  in  the  regular  order  of  nature 
God  may  interpose  in  the  midst  of  physical  causes  by  special  act 
or  by  miraculous  intervention,  acting  against  and  interrupting 
second  causes,  producing  that  which  second  causes  cannot  pro- 
duce.    Yet  this  interposition,  this  miraculous  intervention,  are 
all  part  of  the  plan,  as  much  involved  in  it  as  second  causes  are. 

As  thus  stated  the  doctrine  is  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of 
Fate,  because  there  is  a  wise  end  and  a  wise  author,  and  equally 
and  for  the  same  reasons  to  the  doctrine  of  Chance.1 

1  James  Douglass:  "There  are  but  three  alternatives  for  the  sum  of  existence, 
Chance,  Fate,  or  Deity.  With  Chance  there  would  be  variety  without  uniformity, 
with  Fate  uniformity  without  variety,  but  variety  in  uniformity  is  the  demonstra- 
tion of  primal  design  and  the  seal  of  the  .creative  mind.  In  the  world  as  it  exists 
there  is  infinite  variety  and  amazing  uniformity." 


108  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  2.  Proof  of  the  Doctrine  of  Providence. 
I. — The  Scriptural  Argument. 

1.  The  Scriptures  prove  that  the  divine  providence  is  uni- 
versal, extending  to  and  embracing  the  whole  world  and  the 
whole  of  human  history:  Ps.  cxxxv.  6;  Eph.  i.  11,  last  clause; 
Ps.  ciii.  19;  Dan.  iv.  34,  35.     Here  also  is  to  be  produced  in 
proof  the  general  tone  of  the  prophecies,  which  set  forth  every- 
thing as  arranged  with  reference  to  the  divine  purpose:  Ezek.  xxi. 
27;   Isa.  x.  5;  Acts  xvii.  26;   Rom.  ix. ;  xiii.  1. 

2.  This  providence  is  further  declared  in  Scripture  to  embrace 
the  natural  and  animal  world,  the  whole  physical  sphere:  Matt, 
vi.  26;  Ps.  civ.  27;  Acts  xvii.  25,  xiv.  17;  Job  xxxviii.-xli. 

3.  Individuals   also    in   their   destiny  are  under  the   divine 
guidance  and  providence.     This,  which  is  implied  in  the  whole 
of  Scripture,  is  declared  in  such  passages  as  the  following:  Prov. 
xvi.  9;  Isa.  xlv.  5;  1  Sam.  ii.  7.     So  in  all  passages  which  trace 
disease  and  health  to  the  divine  guidance,  and  represent  man  as 
in  his  temporal  destiny  under  the  guardianship  of  God. 

4.  Still  further,  the  Scriptures  represent  the  actions  of  men 
as  under  the  control  and  government  of  divine  providence: 
Prov.  xxi.  1;  xvi.  1.    -Every  opportunity  that  we  enjoy,  every 
capacity,  every  blessing,  is  traced  to  this  divine  guidance.     Suc- 
cess or  failure  in  our  enterprises  is  in  the  hands  of  God. 

5.  Sin  also  is  included  in  the  divine  government.     God  per- 
mits and  controls  it,  the  permission  being  such  and  only  such  as 
involves  control.     It  exists  not  without  divine  permission,  but 
God  overrules  it.     This  is  implied  in  the  reasoning  of  the  Apostle 
in  Rom.  ix.,  where  he  speaks  of  the  hardening  of  Pharaoh's  heart 
and  the  blinding  of  men's  eyes.     Also,  Ps.  Ixxvi.  10;  Rom.  xi.  32; 
Acts  ii.  23.     Such  passages  prove  more  than  simple  providence, 
they  set  forth  a  predestination,  but  as  a  matter  of  course  they 
involve  the  doctrine  of  providence.     Yet  the  Scriptures  never 
represent  God  as  the  author  of  sin.     They  positively  assert  the 
contrary:  1  John  ii.  16;  James  i.  13. 

II. — Proof  from  the  divine  attributes,  their  character  and 
characteristics.  If  God's  wisdom  be  such  as  we  have  seen,  He 
would  not  create  a  universe  and  then  leave  it.  His  attributes 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  109 

must  be  in  constant  activity,  and  the  exercise  of  these,  om- 
nipotence, omniscience,  goodness,  etc.,  is  the  exercise  of  divine 
providence. 

III. — Another  argument  is  from  the  fact  that  God  is  a  moral 
ruler,  and  as  such  has  a  proper  end  in  the  creation  which  He  has 
made,  and  He  must  so  govern  and  direct  it  that  the  end  shall 
be  accomplished. 

IV. — From  History.  The  Biblical  history  is  the  history  of  the 
divine  providence,  the  only  history  that  ever  was  written  from 
the  truest,  highest,  and  broadest  point  of  view;  and  in  this  God 
appears  at  work  in  all  the  events  recorded,  among  the  heathen 
as  well  as  the  Jews,  directing  everything  for  his  purposes.  The 
highest  point  of  view  for  treating  all  history  would  be  this.1  Di- 
vine providence  is  clearly  seen  in  the  lives  depicted  in  the  Script- 
ures. Moreover,  the  general  course  of  history,  when  regarded 
from  its  highest  point  of  view,  demonstrates  a  divine  agency, 
working  towards  an  end.  The  old  world,  the  mediaeval  and 
the  modern  times  unite  in  one  plan,  tending  towards  the  con- 
summation of  the  Messiah's  kingdom.  No  unity  can  be  given  to 
history  on  any  other  plan.  No  other  central  point  of  view  can 
be  found.  History  without  this  is  chaotic.  The  only  views  that 
can  make  any  pretence  to  compete  with  this  are  the  Positivist 
and  the  Hegelian  theories:  the  former  asserting  that  human 
history  is  intended  to  develop  the  social  and  material  welfare 
of  mankind;  the  latter,  that  history  is  tending  towards  the  illus- 
tration and  development  of  human  freedom,  particularly  as  that 
is  found  in  a  well-ordered  state.2  But  each  of  these  theories 
narrows  the  view  and  cannot  take  in  all  the  facts. 

V. — From  the  order,  harmony,  and  adaptation  of  nature. 
God  is  everywhere,  intelligently  acting,  directing  the  different 
orders  of  creation,  putting  them  in  their  just  relations,  mak- 
ing one  subserve  the  other,  the  inorganic  to  contribute  to  the 
organic,  and  the  different  orders  of  the  organic  to  each  other, 
until  man  is  reached,  the  head  and  crown  of  all. 

i  [See  the  author's  Introd.  to  Christian  Theol.,  page  174.] 

Q  This   is  well  criticised  in  Flint's    Phil,    of   Hist,   in  France  and   Germany, 


110  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

VI. — From  the  nature  and  necessity  of  faith,  piety,  and  re- 
ligion.  Without  belief  in  God's  providence,  religion  is  an  im- 
possibility. All  prayer,  all  sense  of  dependence  upon  God, 
involve  the  belief  that  God  works  through  his  providence. 

§  3.  Distinction  as  to  general  and  particular  Providence. 

General  providence  is  God's  control  over  the  whole ;  particular, 
his  care  over  each  in  relation  to  the  whole.  There  are  not  two 
kinds  of  providence,  but  the  same  providence  is  exercised  in  two  re- 
lations. The  phrase,  special  providence,  is  sometimes  used  to  de- 
note a  different  aspect  of  the  subject,  i.  e.,  to  describe  God's  provi- 
dence as  it  appears  in  its  relation  to  us,  to  designate  some  special 
combinations,  as  in  a  special  answer  to  prayer  or  a  relief  in  an 
emergency,  and  in  fact  in  all  instances  where  grace  and  help  come 
in  critical  circumstances.  There  is  doubtless  a  special  character 
in  these,  involving  as  they  do  an  unusual  combination  of  inci- 
dents in  order  that  a  petition  may  be  answered  or  a  particular 
purpose  be  accomplished.  There  is  understood  to  be  an  order- 
ing of  the  ordinary  course  of  things  particularly  to  some  high 
moral  end.1 

The  proof  of  such  particular  or  special  providence  is  derived: 
•'!)  From  the  fact  that  general  providence  cannot  be  carried  out 
without  this.  All  great  events  are  somewhere  small.  The  destiny 
of  nations  turns  at  some  points  on  very  slight  circumstances. 
(2)  From  Scripture.  In  all  parts  of  Scripture  it  is  presupposed 
that  God  directs  and  guides  individuals  and  has  a  care  for  their 
life.  Appeals  and  exhortations  are  made  on  this  ground:  1  Pet. 
v.  7;  Luke  xii.  6;  Prov.  xvi.  33.  (3)  From  individual  experi- 
ence, particularly  of  all  Christians,  who  have  found  that  the 
more  they  presented  to  God  their  cares,  the  more  they  were 

1  The  rule  for  the  due  interpretation  of  special  providences  is  to  be  taken  from 
their  bearing  on  our  spiritual  state.  Have  they  made  us  more  spiritual  or  hum- 
ble? Probably  the  "  providence  "  is  imaginary  when  it  does  not  minister  tc  the 
Christian  graces,  but  fosters  pride.  Especially  should  caution  be  used  when  mat- 
ters concern  a  wide  sphere  of  interest,  as,  e.  g.,  a  nation  or  political  party  or 
church.  We  may  be  kept  from  much  error  in  the  interpretation  of  special  prov- 
idences by  observing  the  condition  referred  to,  viz.,  in  its  true  idea  a  special' 
providence  is  a  providence  having  respect  to  the  spiritual  growth  or  welfare  of 
individuals. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  Ill 

guided  and  blessed.  Such  trust  in  God's  providence  exercises 
a  healthful  influence  upon  all  who  love  Him.  It  is  particularly 
necessary  to  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  the  renewal  of  God's  chil- 
dren. .  Without  a  most  special  providence  this  is  inconceivable. 
An  objection  to  such  special  providence  is  sometimes  made 
on  the  ground  that  it  represents  God  as  interposing  at  points 
which  are  unworthy  of  his  greatness.  This  is  to  be  met,  if  it 
needs  to  be  met  at  all,  by  a  consideration  of  the  relation  of  the 
little  to  the  great.  The  objection  moreover  proves  too  much. 
It  would  bear  as  directly  against  God's  bringing  little  things 
into  being,  as  against  his  sustaining  and  guiding  them. 

§  4  Modes  of  the  Divine  Providence. 

1.  God  by  his  providence  governs  the  whole  universe  in  all 
its  parts,  each  and  all,  and  each  for  all. 

2.  He  does  this  for  one  comprehensive  end,  in  respect  to  which 
we  do  not  yet  inquire  what  it  may  be. 

3.  He  governs  not  by  suppressing  second  causes,  but  in  har- 
mony with  them.     Here  comes  up  the  chief  point  of  discussion 
and  controversy  on  the  relation  of  providence  to  second  causes. 
From,  the  views  and  arguments  already  advanced,  it  is  evident 
that  the  government  of  second  causes  is  not  to  be  taken  as  a 
mode  of  direct  divine  efficiency.     Second  causes  are  not  modes 
of  operation  of  the  one  great  cause.     What  then  the  mode  of 
the  direction  of  second  causes  is,  is  the  topic  of  discussion.     The 
theological  term  by  which  the  divine  agency  in  connection  with 
second  causes  is  designated  is,  Concur sus,  and  what  we  have  to 
consider  is  the  theory  of  the  concursus.     That  there  is  a  co-agency 
or  co-operation  is  implied  in  all  the  Scripture. 

The  first  theory.  This  co-agency  is  general.  God  acts 
upon  and  through  all,  but  He  does  not  determine  the  specific 
nature  of  the  activity  of  each  second  cause.  So,  e.  </.,  the 
sun  excites  all  sorts  of  seeds  to  activity,  but  the  seeds  grow 
according  to  their  specific  nature,  and  the  office  of  the  sun 
is  simply  that  of  general  excitation.  It  stirs  equally  all  sorts 
of  seeds,  and  then  its  work  ceases,  the  specific  activity  of  each 
seed  being  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  seed.  This  is 


112  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

the  way  in  which  the  co-agency  of  God  in  man's  spiritual 
quickening  and  life  is  interpreted  by  the  Remonstrants  and 
the  Jesuits. 

The  second  theory.  A  more  specific  statement  is  made  by 
the  main  body  of  the  Roman  theologians,  including  Aquinas, 
and  by  the  greater  part  of  Protestant  teachers.  It  is  that 
besides  such  a  general  exciting  agency  on  the  part  of  God, 
there  is  an  immediate  and  simultaneous  co-operation,  a  joint 
agency  in  every  effect,  i.  e.,  the  divine  agency  extends  to 
all  and  each.  The  agency  of  the  sun  upon  the  seed  and 
plant  is  outside,  is  superficial  simply,  is  exerted  in  the  way 
of  general  excitation.  But  the  agency  of  God  as  omnipotent, 
omnipresent,  exerted  in  conformity  with  the  idea  of  the 
divine  co-operation,  must  enter  into  the  interior  as  well  as 
arouse  the  surface.  It  must  go  along  with  every  motion, 
every  activity  which  is  found,  there  must  be  a  joint  simul- 
taneous activity  of  God  with  the  trembling  of  every  nerve, 
with  the. particular  or  specific  growth  of  each  plant,  so  that 
a  divine  power  shapes  and  works  along  with  the  seed  itself, 
with  the  secret  agencies  as  well  as  the  external  products. 
And  so  with  the  human  soul.  The  divine  power  must  enter 
into  the  soul  itself,  and  sustain  each  second  cause  in  working 
according  to  the  particular  end  of  that  second  cause,  must 
sustain  and  direct  it  in  every  movement  so  that  the  concursus 
shall  be  perfect  throughout,  as  if  there  were  a  twofold  ac- 
tivity perfectly  parallel  in  every  act.  But  this  raises 

The  third  question.  How  then  can  this  view  be  reconciled 
with  the  sinful  activities  of  certain  second  causes?  In  meet- 
ing this  difficulty  almost  all  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant 
divines  insist  upon  the  distinction  between  an  act  and  its 
moral  character,  and  put  the  sin,  as  far  as  the  divine  agency 
is  concerned,  in  defect.  God's  agency  thus  extends  to  sin 
not  as  sin,  but  simply  as  an  act  of  the  creature.  Augustine 
illustrated  it  thus:  the  power  which  causes  a  lame  man  to 
walk  is  not  the  cause  of  his  limping:  the  striking  of  an  in- 
strument which  is  out  of  tune  is  not  the  cause  of  the  discord. 
The  cause  of  the  limping  is  not  'in  the  agency  of  God,  it  is 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION,  113 

in  the  structure  of  the  limb,  so  that  there  can  be  co-agency 
in  the  whole  limping,  while  yet  the  co-agent  does  not  produce 
the  limping  and  is  not  responsible  for  it.  As  to  the  musical 
instrument,  the  influence  acting  upon  it  is  not  the  source 
of  the  discord.  This  is  in  the  structure  of  the  instrument, 
and  there  may  be  a  co-agency  in  the  production  of  the  sound, 
the  player  being  responsible  only  for  the  striking  and  the 
instrument  for  the  discord.  So  in  respect  to  sin.  God's  agency 
may  extend  to  every  act  and  activity,  while  yet  He  is  not 
responsible  for  sin,  because  this  comes  not  from  his  agency, 
but  from  the  state  of  the  heart  of  the  individual  with  whom 
He  co-operates. — These  illustrations  are  not  perfect,  but  per- 
haps they  are  as  good  as  can  be  found. 

A  fourth  position.  God  in  his  providence  so  governs  that 
the  natural  world  is  subordinate  to  the  moral  world.  He 
governs  the  natural  in  order  to  the  moral.  Some  naturalists 
oppose  this  view,  urging  that  there  are  two  entirely  different 
spheres,  the  one  physical,  the  other  moral,  and  that  the  whole 
physical  sphere  proceeds  without  reference  to  the  moral,  that 
the  physical  realm  comprises  cases  of  mere  necessity,  and  that 
these  never  can  be  modified  or  diverted  for  moral  ends.1  The 
doctrine  of  Divine  Providence  maintains  the  general  position 
that  although  the  spheres  are  different,  and  though  physical 
and  moral  laws  are  different,  yet  both  spheres  are  a  part  of 
one  plan  and  make  one  whole,  and  that  in  the  divine  plan 
the  natural  is  in  order  to  the  moral,  and  is  upheld  and  guided 
for  moral  ends.  In  both  God  is  equally  a  sovereign.  The  nat- 
ural laws  are  seen  chiefly  in  the  preservation  and  in  all  the 
agencies  and  effects  of  our  natural  powers.  The  moral  order  is 
God's  government  of  moral  beings  to  secure  the  highest  moral 
ends.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  the  following  considerations. 

1.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  divine  government,  the  natural 
is  made  to  subserve  the  moral.  This  is  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  God's  providence.  Natural  pains  or  pleasures  are  directly 

1  One  writer  says,  they  can  no  more  be  turned  aside  than  the  ball  coming 
from  the  mouth  of  a  cannon,  that  both  systems  of  laws  must  go  on,  and  that  the 
physical  cannot  bend  to  the  moral.  See  Prof.  Chase  in  Bib.  Sac. 


114  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

connected  with  the  violation  of,  or  obedience  to,  moral  laws 
The  course  of  nature  thus  works  for  God's  government. 

2.  Also  in  the  course  of  nature,  besides  these  connections  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  providence,  there  may  be  and  are,  on  the 
part  of  God,  interpositions  for  high  moral  ends  and  purposes. 
"  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  all 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."    God  so  directs  the  course 
of  nature  as  to  make  it  subserve  the  interests  of  his  moral  gov- 
ernment.    Obedience  to  his  divine  laws  in  the  long  run  is  seen 
to  issue  in  greater  temporal  well-being.     There  is  no  violation 
of  natural  law  in  this,  but  there  is  direction  of  natural  law  in  it. 
God  so  arranges  the  whole  complexus  of  physical  laws  that  in 
the  long  run  the  physical  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  moral,  and 
tend  to  uphold  the  moral.     God  turns  the  physical  law  into  the 
current  of  his  moral  government.     This  is  illustrated  in  the 
prosperity  and  destiny  of  nations. 

3.  God  likewise  acts  above  the  course  of  nature,  as  in  the 
renewal  and  sanctification  of  the  soul,  and  as  in  the  Incarnation 
of  his  Son. 

4  God  may  and  does  interrupt  the  course  of  nature,  as  in 
miracles. 

5.  God  so  governs  moral  beings  that  they  are  free.     More 
over,  his  efficiency  is  not  the  same  in  sinful  as  in  holy  acts. 

6.  God  governs  in  different  modes  of  interference  according 
to  the  exigency. 

7.  God  knows  the  causes  and  essences  of  things,  and  hence 
He  may  and  doubtless  does  work  in  ways  which  we  cannot 
fathom. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   DECREES   OP    GOD.1 


The  relation  of  the  decrees  of  God  to  his  providence  is  simply 
this:  the  whole  course  and  order  of  divine  providence  are  the 

i  The  subjects  of  the  Order  of  the  Decrees,  Election,  etc.,  belong  in  the  third 
division  of  theology. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  115 

result  of  a  decree  and  purpose.  God  as  a  sovereign  has  fore- 
ordained the  course  and  order  of  providence.  He  has  purposed 
that  things  should  be  and  take  place  as  they  are  and  do  actu- 
ally occui.  In  other  words,  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  decrees 
is  the  doctrine  of  divine  providence  referred  back  to  the  di- 
vine sovereignty.  The  doctrine  asserts  that  all  that  is  ir>  the 
natural  and  moral  world,  including  the  kingdom  of  grace,  takes 
place  in  consequence  of  a  fixed  arid  unchangeable  and  eternal 
purpose  of  God.  (In  some  systems  of  theology  the  doctrine 
of  decrees  is  treated  before  that  of  providence,  which  is  the 
logical  order,  but  the  natural  order  is  rather  to  consider  the 
divine  providence  first.) 

§  1.  Preliminary  Statements. 

I. — In  his  decree  God  is  a  sovereign.  The  doctrine  of  di- 
vine decrees  is  simply  and  ultimately  that  God  is  the  sover- 
eign ruler  of  the  universe  which  He  has  created,  and  that 
He  does  as  He  pleases,  according  to  the  counsel  of  his  own 
will  and  wisdom,  not  in  an  arbitrary  sense,  but  in  such  a 
sense  that  He  needs  not  to  take  counsel  of  his  creatures.  The 
argument  for  this  is  from  various  sources.1  (1)  The  doctrine 
of  the  divine  sovereignty  results  from  the  divine  nature  and 
attributes  in  relation  to  a  dependent  universe.  (2)  It  is  best 
that  a  Being  of  infinite  power  and  wisdom  should  be  the 
sovereign  of  the  universe,  and  that  it  should  not  be  left  to 
the  contingency  and  change  of  inferior  creatures.  (3)  Our 
deepest  religious  convictions  show  us  the  need  of  the  doc- 
trine for  our  renewal  and  sanctification.  We  cannot  rest 
on  any  created  power,  but  must  cast  ourselves  on  the  arm 
of  a  sovereign.  As  is  often  said,  Arminians  are  Calvinists 
when  they  pray.  (4)  The  Scripture  argument.  Ps.  cxv.  3; 
cxxxv.  6;  Rom.  xi.  36;  Eph.  i.  5;  i.  11;  Phil.  ii.  13. 

II. — This  sovereignty  is  not  a  bare  omnipotence,  although 
that  is  involved  in  it,  but  it  includes  the  activity  of  all  God's 
attributes  and  powers.  Sovereignty  is  often  taken  as  equiva- 

1  See  especially  Dr.  Woods's  Lectures,  Vol.  I,  and  Dr.  Balmer  in  Brown's 
Theol.  Tracts,  Vol.  in. 


116  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

lent  to  arbitrary  power,  but  the  doctrine  is  not  that  God 
has  no  reason  for  his  action;  He  has  the  best  of  reasons  for 
all  that  He  does;  He  has  a  rational,  wise,  holy  end  over  in 
view,  and  the  doctrine  is  that  God  brings  this  wise  and  holy 
end  to  its  consummation. 

III. — God's  decrees  are  one  decree,  one  plan,  in  which  each 
is  for  all  and  all  for  each. 

IV. — God's  decrees  or  purpose  simply  determine  this:  that 
all  things  are  to  be  as  they  occur.  The  order  and  plan  of 
the  universe,  both  natural  and  moral,  are  in  divine  fore-or- 
dination just  what  they  are  in  fact — nothing  more  nor  less. 
Whatever  anything  is  in  itself,  in  its  internal  and  external 
relations,  so  it  was  decreed  to  be.  The  decrees  refer  to  all 
things,  results,  and  means,  just  as  they  occur  in  the  course 
of  divine  providence.  If  there  are  contingent  events  in  provi- 
dence, there  are  contingent  events  in  decrees;  if  there  are 
free  acts  in  providence,  there  are  free  acts  in  decrees;  if  there 
are  sinful  and  guilty  acts  in  providence,  so  there  are  in  decrees. 
The  doctrine  of  decrees  or  sovereignty  is  a  comprehensive 
doctrine.  Most  objections  spring  from  taking  isolated  facts 
by  themselves,  as  if  God  purposed  each  event  by  itself,  as 
if,  e.  g.,  He  determined  to  condemn  a  certain  individual  to 
eternal  death  without  any  regard  to  anything  else,  when  the 
true  statement  is,  that  if,  in  point  of  fact,  the  condemnation 
comes  as  the  issue  of  a  sinful  career,  so  it  was  in  the  divine 
purpose.  On  this  ground  we  may  meet  the  common  objection, 
that  if  an  action  is  decreed  we  cannot  be  responsible  for  it. 
The  objection  supposes  that  the  action  is  decreed  in  circum- 
stances which  prevent  responsibility,  whereas  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  individual  is  that  he  is  responsible,  and  that  con- 
sciousness is  as  much  decreed  as  the  act  is.  If  there  is  a 
sinful  act  it  was  decreed  as  the  act  of  a  man  and  as  his 
own  act. 

V. — In  short,  the  doctrine  declares  in  substance,  that  the 
present  system  of  the  universe  in  all  its  parts,  as  it  was, 
is,  and  is  to  be,  is  an  eternal  plan,  or  purpose,  or  idea  in 
the  divine  mind. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMI TION.          117 

§  2.   Of  the  Terms  used  to  denote  the  Doctrine. 

The  term  purpose  is  equivalent  to  the  term  decrees.  The 
word  decree  is  in  some  respects  unfortunate,  because  misunder- 
stood so  frequently.  Decree  is  used  ordinarily,  and  in  Script- 
ure, in  the  sense  of  edict  or  law,  that  which  God  commands. 
But  the  theological  usage  takes  the  word  not  in  the  sense 
of  command  or  approbation  on  God's  part,  but  of  what  He 
permits  or  determines  to  be  done  as  a  whole  plan.  It  does 
not  imply  moral  approval  on  the  side  of  God,  or  fate  or  ne- 
cessity on  the  side  of  the  act,  but  it  does  imply  certainty.  Of 
the  general  decree  of  God,  predestination  is  a  part.  The  de- 
cree of  God  embraces  all  that  occurs;  predestination  is  tech- 
nically a  part  of  the  divine  decree,  and  is  used  of  that  which 
relates  to  moral  beings,  and  especially  to  their  final  condition 
(although  predestination  really  applies  to  every  event  of  their 
history  as  well  as  to  their  final  destiny).  As  thus  used  it 
implies  that  man's  final  state  is  involved  in  God's  plan,  yet 
never  without  respect  to  what  has  gone  before,  rather  as  being 
the  sum  of  what  has  gone  before.  Predestination  contains  the 
end  only  as  containing  the  sum  total  of  what  has  gone  before. 

§  3.   Characteristics  of  the  Divine  Decree  or  Decrees. 

I. — They  are  sovereign,  expressing  the  good  pleasure  of  God, 
and  so  in  many  respects  must  be  unsearchable  to  man. 

II. — They  are  unconditional.  They  are  not  dependent  on 
anything  which  is  not  a  part  or  parcel  of  the  divine  decree 
itself.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  decrees  themselves  are  not 
mutually  dependent,  but  that  nothing  in  the  plan  is  conditioned 
by  anything  which  is  not  in  the  decree  itself.1 

III. — They  are  eternal.  They  must  be  so  on  the  considera- 
tion that  otherwise  there  would  be  a  change  in  the  divine  plan 
or  appointment:  Eph.  i.  4;  2  Tim.  i.  9;  1  Pet.  i.  20.  When 
the  Scriptures  speak  of  one  decree  as  preceding  another,  the 
order  is  in  the  unfolding  of  the  decrees,  and  not  in  the  formation 
of  them. 

1  Yet  the  phrase  unconditional  decree  is  usually  understood  to  mean  an  arbi- 
trary purpose.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  it  is  taken  by  Supralapsarianism. 
But  that  theory*  since  the  Synod  of  Dort,  ha's  scarcely  dared  to  lift  its  head. 


118  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

IV. — They  are  immutable.     This  is  involved  in  their  eternity 
Ps.  xxxiii.  11;  Isa.  xlvi.  11. 

V. — They  involve  the  certain  occurrence  of  that  which  is 
decreed.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  efficacious  as  applied 
to  the  divine  decrees,  i.  e.,  what  is  contained  in  them  is  sure, 
certain,  the  decree  is  effectual,  a  purpose  which  is  carried  into 
effect.  Not  that  the  decree  itself  is  efficacious,  or  that  God  by 
a  direct  efficiency  carries  each  decree  into  operation.  The  rea- 
sons for  this  are:  (1)  If  it  were  not  so  there  would  be  110  certainty 
to  divine  government.  This  might  be  overthrown  or  set  aside. 
The  fulfillment  of  prophecy  may  depend  upon  a  million  of  mi- 
nute particulars  whose  occurrence  must  be  secured.  (2)  The  di- 
vine attributes  prove  the  position.  (3)  The  Scriptures  assert  it. 
All  the  prophecies  establish  it:  Isa.  xiv.  27.  Also  all  passages 
which  declare  the  divine  sovereignty. 

VI. — The  divine  decrees,  as  including  all  events,  include  sin 
also.  The  controversy  between  the  Supra-  and  Sub-lapsarians 
is  not  on  account  of  this  point,  whether  the  decree  of  God  in- 
cludes sin  as  certain,  but  it  is  in  respect  to  the  order  of  tlie 
divine  decrees.  The  Supralapsarian  says  that  the  divine  purpose 
in  respect  to  sin  or  the  permission  of  sin  in  the  world  was  subse- 
quent to  the  divine  purpose  for  salvation  and  punishment,  i.  e.,  in 
the  order  of  divine  decrees,  the  logical  order,  the  first  decree  is 
that  God  will  set  forth  his  glory,  the  second,  that  He  will  do 
this  by  saving  some  and  condemning  others,  and  the  third  is 
the  decree  of  the  fall,  the  Lapsus.  The  Sublapsarian  says 
that  in  the  order  of  the  divine  decrees,  there  is  first  the 
decree  to  create,  then  the  permission  of  the  fall,  and  then  elec- 
tion and  redemption,  or  redemption  and  election.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  good  reason  for  asserting  the  sublapsarian  position 
as  against  the  supralapsarian,  though  it  is  to  be  acknowl- 
edged that  the  whole  subject  of  the  order  of  the  divine  de- 
crees is  above  man's  comprehension.  But  it  appears  absurd  to 
speak  of  redemption  unless  there  was  a  fall  in  the  order  of 
thought,  or  of  a  punishment  unless  there  was  sin  to  be  punished. 
Irrespective  of  supra-  or  sub-lapsarian  speculations,  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  that  in  the  whole  divine  plan  sin  somehow  has  its 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  119 

place.  It  is  taken  into  the  plan,  not  under  God's  approval  nor 
as  the  means  of  good,  but  as  a  fact.  The  arguments  for  this 
position  are:  (1)  If  sin  be  excluded  from  the  divine  decree  or 
purpose,  then  that  on  which  the  whole  economy  of  grace  rests  is 
not  contained  in  the  divine  purpose.  (2)  If  sin  is  excluded,  mucli 
the  larger  part  of  the  history  of  mankind  is  excluded.  How 
much  of  human  history  is  there  which  is  not  sin  or  of  sin  ?  To 
exclude  it  would  be  to  throw  the  divine  plan  out  of  the  world. 
(3)  As  all  events  are  connected,  and  sin  belongs  in  the  line  of 
cause  and  effect,  to  exclude  sin  from  the  decree  would  annul  the 
possibility  of  providence  and  a  divine  government.  Sin  is  ever 
interlocked  with  good.  It  is  the  overruling  of  sin  which  produces 
the  highest  good.1  (4)  The  relation  to  sin  in  which  the  Script- 
ures exhibit  God  is  that  of  permitting  and  overruling  it,  but  at 
the  same  time  they  imply  that  it  is  included  in  his  general  pur- 
pose: Kom.  v.  20;  ix.  18;  xi.  8;  xi.  32;  Gal.  iii.  19;  iii.  22. 

NOTE. — The  question  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians  is  this:  whether  the 
decrees  depend  on  foreknowledge.  Does  the  divine  decree  depend  upon  God's 
foreseeing  that  such  and  such  a  thing  will  be  ?  Is  it  decreed  simply  because  God 
foresaw  it  would  come  to  pass?  In  relation  to  this:  (1)  In  one  sense  the  fore- 
knowledge must  be  the  ground  of  the  decree,  i.  e.,  God  does  not  decree  anything 
which  he  does  not  know,  He  must  know  what  He  is  going  to  decree.  God  knows 
what  is  possible,  what  is  best  to  be  in  a  certain  plan,  knows  what  belongs  to  all  the 
parts  of  the  plan,  knows  all  this  in  the  order  of  thought  before  He  determines  that 
the  plan  shall  take  effect,  and  in  this  general  sense  the  foreknowledge  is  the  log- 
ical and  intellectual  condition  of  the  purpose.  But  this  .is  not  the  real  question. 
The  real  question  is,  Is  the  foreknowledge  that  such  and  such  an  event  will  be, 
the  ground  of  the  determination  that  it  shall  be?  The  Arminian  says  that  God 
foresees  that  Peter  will  do  a  wrong  act,  and  foreseeing  that  he  will,  God  determines 
to  allow  it.  In  regard  to  this,  (a.)  God  may  undoubtedly  foresee  that  a  free  agent 
in  such  and  such  circumstances  will  act  in  such  and  such  a  way.  and  may  deter- 
mine to  place  him  so  and  so,  and  in  doing  that  may  virtually  determine  the  action, 
and  here  God's  determination  is  simply  not  to  prevent  the  doing  of  what  He  fore- 
sees will  be  done.  This  is  a  supposable  case,  and  here  of  course  there  would  bo 
no  interference  with  the  freedom  of  the  individual.  (&.)  But  the  ground  of  the 
certainty  of  the  event  that  Peter  will  do  a  wrong  act,  is  not  the  divine  foreknowl- 
edge, but  the  divine  purpose,  i.  e.,  the  purpose  of  God  to  permit  the  act,  to  take 
it  into  the  whole  divine  plan  is  the  ground  of  the  certain  occurrence  of  the  event. 
God  foresaw  that  Peter  would  do  so  and  so,  but  that  is  not'all.  That  Peter  would 
do  so  and  so  is  also  certain,  for  it  is  included  in  the  divine  plan.  What  is  the 
ground  of  that  certainty  ?  Is  it  that  God  foresaw  that  Peter  would  thus  act?  No. 

1  Nominal  Calvinists  and  Arminians  protest  against  the  doctrine  of  decrees, 
because  they  insist  upon  putting  a  foreign  sense  upon  the  word  decree. 


120  CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY. 

Because  all  which  that  would  bring  with  it  is,  that  if  Peter  is  placed  so  and  so,  he 
will  do  so  and  so.  But  it  is  that  God  has  determined  that  that  event  with  all  its 
circumstances  shall  he,  and  it  has  been  adopted  into  his  plan,  (c.)  Unless  the 
event  or  act  was  adopted  into  the  divine  plan,  there  could  not  be  a  certainty  of 
its  occurrence.  It  would  only  be  possible.  Thus  there  is  both  foreknowledge 
and  certainty  in  regard  to  an  event,  but  the  certainty  of  an  event  as  future  rests 
in  the  purpose  and  not  in  the  foreknowledge.  The  purpose  is  the  ground  of 
the  foreknowledge,  and  not  the  foreknowledge  the  ground  of  the  purpose. '  (d )  In 
respect  to  the  Scripture  testimony,  see  passages  cited  above.  The  passage  Rom. 
viii.  29  is  brought  into  the  controversy.  "For  whom  He  foreknew,  He  also  fore- 
ordained (or  predestinated)  to  be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son."  Even 
supposing  that  itpoeyroo  (foreknew)  means  solely  to  foreknow,  the  Arminian  in- 
terpretation would  not  follow;  because  all  that  the  passage  can  be  said  to  assert 
is,  Whom  God  did  foreknow  (L  e.,  Christians)  He  did  also  predetermine  should 
be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son.  But  the  better  interpretation  is  that  of 
taking  foreknew  as  equivalent  to  predetermine,  and  to  understand  the  passage  as 
declaring,  Whom  He  predetermined  to  be  Christians  He  also  did  appoint  to  be 
conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son. 

§  4.  Proof  of  the  Doctrine  of  Decrees. 

I. — There  is  a  strong  analogical  argument  from  the  doctrine 
of  providence.  There  is  the  same  God  working  in  natural  and 
moral  government.  There  are  designs  and  ends  in  nature:  why 
not  the  same  in  God's  providential  dispensations?  The  designs 
in  nature  were  planned  beforehand :  why  not  in  the  moral  sphere? 
If  in  the  less,  why  not  in  the  greater  ?  If  in  the  natural,  a  fortiori 
in  the  moral,  as  being  more  important. 

II. — There  is  also  a  rational  argument  on  the  general  posi- 
tion that  it  is  best  that  all  events  should  be  embraced  in  one  plan 
of  a  wise  and  holy,  omniscient  and  omnipresent  sovereign. 

III. — The  various  divine  attributes  imply  and  demand  the 
doctrine.  (1)  The  attribute  of  omniscience  implies  the  divine 
decree.2  Omniscience  cannot  know  events  unless  they  are  ob- 
jects of  knowledge.  If  they  are  known  as  certain,  the  quality 
of  certainty  must  have  been  imparted  to  them.  Anything  can 
be  made  certain  only  in  one  of  two  ways;  either  by  an  internal 
necessity  or  by  a  divine  purpose.  Free  acts  are  not  rendered 
certain  by  necessity,  consequently  if  they  are  certain  they  can 
only  have  become  so  through  the  divine  purpose.  That  they  are 
certain  is  shown  by  prophecy  and  providence.  If  it  be  said  that 


»  Edwards  on  the  Will,  Part  ii.  §  12. 
*  Fully  argued  in  Edwards  on  the  Will. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  121 

God  foreknows  them  as  certain  through  the  laws  and  processes 
by  which  they  are  made  certain,  yet  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  He  made  these  laws  and  established  them  in  their  goings, 
and  fixed  the  conjunction  under  which  they  work  at  any  par- 
ticular point.  (2)  The  immutability  of  God  is  a  proof  of  the 
doctrine  of  decrees.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  proper  state- 
ment is,  If  men  will  do  so,  then  God  will  do  so,  and  that  is  the 
posture  of  things  in  God's  government;  He  changes  his  conduct 
when  man  changes.  To  which  the  sufficient  reply  is,  that  He 
does  this  undoubtedly,  changing  his  relation  to  men  as  they 
change,  and  that  He  always  meant  to  do  this,  and  this  is  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  purposes;  and  if  He  did  not  always  mean 
to,  then  something  comes  upon  Him  unawares  in  the  course  of 
his  providence.  It  is  also  said  that  the  decree  of  redemption 
was  dependent  on  the  fall,  and  before  the  fall  this  decree  could 
not  have  been  formed.  In  the  order  of  time  it  is  true  that 
redemption  is  brought  in  in  connection  with  the  fall,  and  in 
the  logical  arrangement  of  the  decrees  it  is  true  that  the  de- 
cree of  redemption  is  subsequent  to  the  notion  of  the  fall,  but 
that  is  simply  an  order  of  the  divine  purposes  and  not  a  depend- 
ence of  those  purposes  upon  anything  that  is  to  occur  by  and 
by.  (3)  God's  holiness  is  a  proof  of  his  decrees.  It  must  be 
the  purpose  of  a  Holy  Being  that  holiness  shall  be  triumphant, 
and  this  can  only  be  by  a  plan  to  make  it  triumphant,  and  that 
is  the  doctrine  of  decrees,  viz.,  a  plan  by  which  God  makes  every 
thing  to  work  so  that  holiness  shall  triumph.  In  the  same  way 
God's  benevolence  and  all  his  moral  attributes  may  be  adduced 
in  proof.  Everything  must  be  provided  for,  otherwise  God 
would  commit  the  fortunes  of  the  universe  to  an  uncertain  sys- 
tem. (4)  The  Scriptural  proof,  (a.)  Some  direct  and  pregnant 
assertions:  Is.  xlvi.  10,  11;  Eph.  i.  9,  i.  11.  (&.)  From  proph- 
ecy. The  whole  of  prophecy  proves  decrees.  Christ  was  de- 
livered by  the  determinate  counsel  and  foreknowledge  of  God. 
It  was  before  announced  that  He  should  come,  (c.)  The  doctrine 
of  decrees  is  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  a  special  providence  as 
derived  from  Scripture  (see  above),  (d.)  From  the  Scriptural 
representation  that  man's  destiny  for  life  and  death  is  iii  the 


122  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

hands  of  God.  "  He  giveth  to  all  life  and  breath  and  all  things.1' 
Job  xiv.  5: — "his  days  are  determined."  (e.)  As  far  as  sin  is 
concerned,  the  Scriptures  represent  that  as  embraced  in  the  di- 
vine purpose:  Acts  ii.  23,  iv.  27.  (/.)  The  doctrine  of  election 
also  involves  the  truth  of  the  divine  purpose. 

§  5.   Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  the  Divine  Decrees. 

I. — It  is  said  that  the  doctrine  involves  fatalism. 

Fatalism  is  an  indefinite  term,  and  the  different  senses  which 
it  has  need  to  be  carefully  distinguished.  (1)  The  chief  doctrine 
of  fatalism  is  that  which  makes  everything  that  is  produced  in 
the  world  to  be  the  result  of  matter  and  motion.  In  this  sense  the 
doctrine  of  decrees  is  not  fatalistic.  (2)  Pantheistic  fatalism  makes 
everything  to  be  the  result  of  a  blind  necessity,  and  although  the 
original  source  may  be  conceived  as  spirit  rather  than  matter,  yet 
it  is  a  blind  unconscious  force,  and  not  an  intelligence  which  is  at 
work. — These  are  the  two  strict  systems  of  fatalism.  (3)  The 
Stoical  system  of  fatalism  of  ancient  times  and  the  system  of 
strict  necessity  of  modern  times  assert  that  all  things  are  bound 
together  by  a  series  and  concatenation  of  causes,  make  God  to 
be  merely  the  necessary  First  Cause  and  deny  human  freedom. 
The  human  will  is  declared  to  be  subject  to  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  its  freedom  not  being  allowed  as  one  of  the  causes  in 
the  continual  connection.  This  system  has  been  repudiated  by 
Calvinistic  divines  in  the  statement  that  the  divine  purpose  em- 
braces freedom. — Hence,  in  no  proper  sense  of  fatalism  can  the 
doctrine  of  the  divine  purpose  be  said  to  come  under  it.  For  the 
doctrine  of  divine  decrees  simply  asserts  that  all  things  are  fore- 
known and  predetermined  by  a  wise,  omniscient,  and  omnipotent 
being  and  conscious  intelligence,  and  that  in  the  plan  everything 
is  provided  for  just  as  it  occurs  in  fact. 

II. — Kindred  to  the  objection  just  considered  is  that  which 
asserts  that  the  doctrine  of  divine  decrees  is  a  doctrine  of 
necessity. 

The  word  necessity  is  used  in  a  variety  of  senses.  (!)  Meta- 
physical necessity,  by  which  is  meant  the  impossibility  of  tho 
opposite.  It  is  impossible  that  at  the  same  time  a  thing  should 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  123 

be  and  not  be, — that  there  should  be  an  event  without  a  cause. 
Wherever  there  is  that  in  the  nature  of  the  case  which  makes 
the  contrary  view  impossible,  there  is  metaphysical  necessity 
In  this  sense  the  doctrine  of  decrees  is  of  course  not  the  doctrine 
of  necessity.  (2)  Logical  necessity,  by  which  is  meant  the  logi- 
cal impossibility  of  the  opposite.  Given  the  premises,  and  such 
a  conclusion  is  the  logical  result,  so  that  any  other  logical  con- 
clusion is  an  impossibility.  (3)  Physical  necessity,  which  is 
what  is  ordinarily  meant  in  the  objection.  This  is  a  necessity 
which  is  based  on  the  uniformity  of  natural  laws,  a  necessity 
in  which  the  terms  conjoined  are  physical,  in  which  with  a  cer- 
tain physical  cause  a  given  physical  effect  must  result.  The 
assertion  that  physical  necessity  must  rule  if  the  doctrine  of 
divine  decrees  is  true,  rests  on  the  position  that  the  laws  of 
nature  are  uniform  in  their  action,  and  that  these  imply  in 
their  relation  to  the  will,  coercion,  that  they  simply  force  the 
will.  The  position  implies  that  the  result  will  come  although 
the  opposition  of  the  will  may  be  put  forth. — In  this  sense  the 
doctrine  of  divine  decrees  is  riot  a  doctrine  of  necessity,  because 
it  does  not  assert  or  imply  that  the  decrees  take  effect  in  man 
in  spite  of  his  will,  or  that  they  coerce  man  by  a  physical  force 
which  he  cannot  resist,  or  that  the  terms  conjoined  are  simply 
physical.  (4)  Moral  necessity,  by  which  is  meant1  the  certainty 
that  they  will  be  and  take  place  as  they  are  and  do.  It  is  equiv- 
alent to  certainty.  In  this  sense  of  moral  necessity  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  will  is  not  conceivable.  The  concurrence  of  the  will 
is  embraced  in  the  necessity.  In  other  words,  moral  necessity 
is  the  conjunction  of  moral  causes  and  effects,  as  physical  ne- 
cessity is  the  conjunction  of  physical  causes  and  effects.  The 
laws  of  cause  and  effect  are  at  work  in  both  moral  and  phy- 
sical necessity,  but  in  cases  of  moral  necessity  the  causes  are 
inclination,  motives,  desire,  etc.,  which  do  not  force  the  will. 
With  this  understanding  of  the  term  necessity,  as  a  combina- 
tion of  moral  antecedents  and  consequents,  the  doctrine  of 
decrees  may  be  said  to  involve  it,  in  the  sense  of  there  being 
a  certainty  of  action,  certainty  not  under  physical,  but  undei 
1  A.S  explained  by  both  the  older  and  younger  Edwards. 


124  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

moral,  laws.  The  term  necessity  is  an  unfortunate  one.  Cer- 
tainty is  better.1 

III. — It  is  sometimes  objected  to  the  doctrine  of  decrees  that 
it  is  the  result  of  a  speculative  tendency;  that  it  is  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  philosophical  thesis  into  theology,  and  has  not  a  re- 
ligious source.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  false.  All  the  great 
advocates  of  decrees  have  been  influenced  not  by  a  philosophical 
but  by  a  religious  view  of  things.2 

IV. — Objection  is  made  on  the  score  of  human  freedom,  with 
which  the  doctrine  of  decrees  is  said  to  be  inconsistent.3 — But  if 
decrees  are  inconsistent  with  human  freedom,  it  must  be  from 
something  in  the  nature  of  the  decree,  or  something  in  the  nature 
of  freedom,  which  is  inconsistent  with  the  decree.  The  general 
answer  is  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  decree  which 
is  inconsistent  with  human  freedom,  because  what  the  decree 
secures  is  certainty;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  human 
freedom  which  is  inconsistent  with  the  decree,  because  freedom 
is  consistent  with  certainty:  i.  e.,  the  middle  term  here  is  cer- 
tainty. The  decree  secures  certainty,  and  freedom  is  consistent 

1  On  the  position  of  the  younger  Edwards  some  further  remarks  will  be  made 
under  the  head  of  Liberty  and  Necessity.     We  cannot  agree  with  the  limitation 
which  he  puts  upon  the  action  of  the  will,  especially  in  seeming  to  imply  that  in 
the  case  of  moral  agency  we  have  a  given  volition  or  choice,  and  that  what  is  the 
cause  of  that  choice  is  simply  and  solely  the  motive,  and  not  the  man.     In  ordei 
to  save  the  doctrine  of  liberty  in  the  causality  of  any  choice,  we  must  put  in  hu- 
man freedom,  the  will  as  well  as  the  motive.     Any  given  choice  or  volition  con- 
sidered as  a  result,  is  the  product  of  two  factors,  of  the  motive  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  choosing  on  the  other,  and  the  result  of  the  choosing  is  the  choice.     The 
difficulty  arises  from  not  distinguishing  between  the  choosing  and  the  choice,  be- 
tween the  man  willing  and  the  volition  which  is  the  result.     If  we  make  the  whole 
cause  to  be  in  the  motive  and  desires,  and  the  whole  effect  to  be  in  the  volition,  and 
do  not  put  in  an  act  of  choice  as  also  included,  it  becomes  impossible  to  assert  the 
freedom  of  the  will  except  in  mere  words.     See  Pres.  Day's  Keview  of  Edwards 
on  the  Will,  which  is  one  of  the  best  expositions  of  the  subject. 

2  See  Julius  Mtiller  in  Studien  und  Kritiken,  1856.     He  goes  through  the  litera- 
ture of  the  subject,  and  shows  that  the  belief  of  both  Calvin  and  Luther  was  con- 
nected with  their  views  of  justification,  and  with  the  general  position  that  man  is 
in  such  a  moral  state  that  he  cannot  rely  upon  himself  for  salvation. 

3  This  is  the  chief  argument  of  Bledsoe  in  his  Theodicy,  on  the  whole  the 
ablest  work  in  this  country  against  the  Calvinistic  system.     He  is  obliged  to  take 
refuge  in  an  absolute  self-determining  power  of  the  will,  ultimately  in  the  sense 
that  that  which  determines  the  will  to  any  particular  course  of  action  is  nothing, 
that  all  that  cm  be  said  is  that  the  will  determines  itself. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  125 

with  this.     The  chief  point  to  be  considered  is  the  assertion,  that 
wrtainty  is  consistent  with  freedom.     On  this  it  is  to  be  said: 

1.  There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  decree  which  is  in 
itself  inconsistent  with  human  freedom.     The  decree  says  events 
are  certain  as  they  take  place,  and  if  they  take  place  freely 
through  choice  this  is  included  in  the  decree.     Whether  we  are 
able  to  state  fully  how  this  is  or  not  is  a  secondary  question ;  it 
is  enough  to  save  the  doctrine,  that  the  sense  in  which  we  hold 
it  is  one  which  includes  human  freedom  in  the  field  covered  by 
the  decree. 

2.  Nor  can  it  be  alleged  that  in  the  execution  of  the  decrees 
there  are  proceedings  which  are  inconsistent  with  human  free- 
dom.    The  execution  of  the  decrees,  as  they  are  actually  carried 
out  in  regeneration,  and  so  in  all  cases  of  sin,  takes  place  without 
interference  with  free  agency.     There  is  nothing  in  man's  con- 
sciousness which  is  at  variance  with  his  acts,  his  activity  from 
beginning  to  end  proceeds  according  to  his  free  and  responsible 
nature,  and  yet  his  acts  are  the  results  of  the  decree. 

3.  For  each  fact,  the  fact  of  the  divine  decree  and  the  fact 
of  human  freedom,   there  is  sufficient  independent  proof,  and 
there  we  might  rest.     There  is  enough  proof  for  decrees  on  ra- 
tional and  Scriptural  grounds,  and  enough  for  freedom  in  con- 
sciousness; and  if  we  state  the  two  so  that  they  are  consistent 
with  each  other,  we  have  done  all  that  is  required.     They  could 
be  so  stated  as  to  involve  a  contradiction;  e.  g.,  the  decrees  as 
bringing  the  human  will  under  physical  necessity,  or  freedom  as 
consisting  in  the  power  of  arbitrary  choice  or  determination  of 
the  will,  without  or  in  spite  of  motives.     But  if  we  view  the  de- 
cree as  that  which  secures  certainty,  and  freedom  as  the  powei 
of  choice  under  motives,  which  is  consistent  with  certainty,  then, 
so  far  as  the  form  of  statement  is  concerned  there  is  no  objection 
to  be  made.     And  if  we  cannot  find  all  the  links,  the  points  of 
connection  between  the  certainty  which  is  secured  by  the  divine 
decree  and  the  freedom  which  is  attested  by  consciousness,  we 
may  simply  say  that  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  do  this. 

4.  Moreover,  there  are  positive  facts  which  show  that  cer- 
tainty is  not  inconsistent  with  freedom.     God's  acts  are  doubt 


126  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

less  all  certain,  and  they  are  unquestionably  all  free.  And  if 
freedom  and  certainty  can  co-exist  in  God,  the  omnipotent,  much 
more  may  they  in  man  the  creature.  It  is  certain  that  all  the 
divine  acts  will  be  holy;  it  is  certain  that  they  are  perfectly  free. 
So  in  respect  to  Christ,  it  was  certain  that  He  would  continue  to 
be  holy,  harmless,  and  undefined,  and  yet  all  his  acts  were  volun- 
tary, free.  Scripture  asserts  that  the  saints  will  persevere  in 
holiness  to  the  end,  yet  in  the  whole  course  of  their  perseverance 
they  are  conscious  of  freedom.  In  all  cases  of  regeneration,  we 
believe  that  the  renewal  is  effected  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  All 
Arminians  confess  this.  And  yet,  in  all  that  we  can  trace  as  be- 
longing to  the  regeneration,  we  know  that  we  are  free,  we  act 
"most  freely"  under  that  divine  influence  which  secures  the 
certain  renewal  of  the  soul.  Further,  all  cases  of  sin  in  the 
sinner's  conscious  experience  illustrate  the  fact  that  certainty 
and  freedom  are  reconcilable  with  one  another.  It  is  certain 
that  sinners  will  go  on  to  destruction  unless  grace  intervene,  and 
yet  in  all  their  course  they  are  free  and  are  conscious  of  free- 
dom. We  ourselves  can  foresee  with  tolerable  certainty  how 
men  will  act  under  certain  circumstances;  and  if  we  with  our 
imperfect  knowledge  may  have  a  degree  of  certainty  in  regard, 
why  may  not  God  have  entire  certainty  in  respect,  to  them  ? 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE    END    OF   GOD    IN   CREATION. 

References:  Edwards,  vol.  ii.,  also  in  Brown's  Theol.  Tracts, 
vol.  2,  "  God  made  all  things  for  the  most  perfect  gratification 
of  his  infinitely  benevolent  mind  " ;  Dr.  Spring :  "  God  the  end  of 
all  things,"  Princeton  Repos.,  1832,  Princeton  Essays,  vol.  ii.,  -an 
unsatisfactory  discussion ;  Pres.  Day,  on  Benevolence  and  Selfish- 
ness, Bib.  Repos.,  1843:  "There  are  several  ultimate  ends,  sincts 
an  end  is  a  good  in  itself;"  Rev.  W.  C.  Wisner,  Bib.  Repos., 
July,  1850 :  "The  end  is  happiness  in  holiness," — against  Edwards; 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  127 

Burton,  Essays,  pp.  286  seq. ;  Dwight,  SermonXXV.,  "Thechief  end 
of  man";  Dr.  Samuel  Austin,  Worcester,  1826:  "that  God  could 
not  be  in  any  sense  His  own  end — He  could  not  gain  anything 
by  creation":  so  Wisner,  for  substance;  Dr.  Harris,  in  Man  Prime- 
val:  ch.  i.,  The  great  reason  why  God  must  be  his  own  Last 
End,  ch.  ii.,  The  divine  all-sufficiency,  last  end  of  creation;  Hop- 
kins, System,  i.  90-92;  Bretschneider,  Dogmatik,  I.;  Strauss, 
Glaubenslehre  I.,  §  47;  Ebrard,  Dogmatik,  L,  §  273,  pp.  355-8; 
Twesten,  Glaubenslehre,  II.,  pp.  88,  89;  Kant,  Kritik  d.  Urtheils- 
kraft(Werke vii.)p.  311  seq. ;  Schweizer,  Glaubenslehre,  L,  137-143 ; 
The  Glory  of  God  the  great  End  of  Moral  Action,  John  Martin, 
D.D.,  Brown's  Theol.  Tracts,  vol.  iii. ;  Quenstedt:  The  last  end 
is  the  glory  of  God,  glory  of  his  goodness,  power,  and  wisdom. 
"  Finis  intermedius  est  hominum  salus.  Omnia  enim  Deus  fecit 
propter  hominem,  hominem  autem  propter  se  ipsum." 

In  the  discussion  of  this  subject  the  following  points  are  as- 
sumed on  the  ground  of  what  has  gone  before: 

That  God  is  the  author  of  creation; 

That  He  is  a  wise,  holy,  and  benevolent  Being; 

That  the  creation  is  something  distinct  from  himself; 

That  there  is  an  end,  an  object,  to  be  attained  by  it. 

§  1.  Meaning  and  Statement  of  the  Question. 

The  meaning  of  the  phrase,  "  End  of  God  in  creation,"  is,  the 
final  object  for  which  the  world  was  made,  the  result  which  God 
intends  to  bring  about,  to  consummate  in  the  created  universe, 
the  last  end,  the  chief  end.  Some  have  discriminated  between 
the  chief  and  the  last  end,  but  this  can  hardly  be  done,  as  they 
run  into  one  another.1  It  is  said  that  the  chief  end  is  holiness 
and  the  last  end  is  happiness ;  but  this  is  a  forced  distinction. 

The  inquiry  is  still  further  after  the  last  end  of  God  in  crea- 
tion, not  the  last  end  for  the  creatures  simply,  though  that  may 
be  included  in  it,  but  the  end  of  the  divine  manifestations. 

It  is  an  inquiry,  too,  about  one  such  last  end,  to  which  all 
others  may  be  referred  and  subordinated.  If  there  be  several 

1  See  Bib.  Sac.,  Oct.  1853,  article  on  Edwards's  Nature  of  Virtue,  where  ulti« 
mate  is  made  to  mean  last  in  order  of  time. 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ends,  the  problem  is,  to  refer  them  to  one  which  shall  include, 
in  their  integrity,  all  the  others. 

The  inquiry  is  also  for  the  last  end  of  God  in  creation;  and 
by  creation  is  meant,  here,  all  of  the  universe  which  is  not  God, 
and  which  He  brings  into  being  for  an  end. 

The  last  end  of  anything,  Kant  truly  says,  is  that  end  or 
object  which  does  not  need  anything  beyond  it  as  the  condition 
of  its  existence.  Distinctions  have  been  made  as  to  ends,  and 
differences  in  theories  arise  partly  from  neglect  of  these  distinc- 
tions, (a.)  Subordinate  and  ultimate  ends:  subordinate,  one  that 
is  sought  for  with  reference  to  an  ultimate  end.1  (&.)  Inferior 
and  chief.  These  terms  relate  to  a  comparison  of  different  ends 
— whether  subordinate  or  ultimate — as  to  their  respective  value 
and  worth,  (c.)  Objective  and  subjective,  in  respect  to  creation. 
Subjective  means,  that  which  moved  the  mind  of  the  author, 
his  pleasure  in  the  act;  objective,  the  end  to  be  realized  in  crea- 
tion, the  object  in  view,  that  in  which  the  pleasure  is  found. 
This  distinction  brings  up  one  of  the  main  differences  in  the 
theories.  With  the  distinction  as  here  made,  nobody  would  deny 
that  God's  subjective  end  in  creation  is  his  pleasure,  his  hap- 
piness in  it.  "For  thy  pleasure  they  are  and  were  created." 
But  that  is  not  what  God  intended  to  realize;  our  inquiry  is 
not  for  this  subjective  end  in  itself — that  ive  knoiv; — but  it  is 
for  that  objective  end  in  view  of  which  this  divine  joy  arises.3 
(d.)  Original  and  consequential.  Edwards  (ii.  197)  distinguishes 
between  ultimate3  ends  as  original  and  independent  —  and 
consequential  or  dependent.  E.  g.,  God  loves  to  do  justice 
to  men  as  a  good  in  itself:  but  this  could  not  be  an  orig- 
inal end  with  Him  in  creation,  for  it  is  consequential  or 
dependent  on  their  existence.  So  God  loves  to  make  his 

1  In  this  sense  ultimate  ends  may  be  as  various  as  our  specific  duties  and  aims, 
natural  or  moral. 

2  Objective  and  subjective  ends  are  also  found  in  the  creation  itself;  subjective 
meaning  man's  happiness,  and  the  delight  and  happiness  of  all  sentient  beings, 
and  objective  meaning  that  manifestation  of  the  divine  operations  which  is  to 
moral  beings  the  source  of  their  highest  blessedness.     By  this  usage  the  terms 
are  much  intermingled  and  confused. 

3  In  his  use  of  "ultimate"  Edwards  is  sometimes  perplexing.     Ho  ought 
always  to  have  used  supreme  or  last  end. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  129 

creatures   happy;    this   is   an   end,   yet   consequential   and   de- 
pendent upon  their  existence. 

The  purpose  of  the  inquiry.  In  asking,  What  is  the  end  of  God 
in  creation,  we  mean  to  inquire  for  his  original,  ultimate,  ob 
jective  end  in  all  his  works  of  creation.  We  mean  by  original, 
that  which  needs  nothing  besides  as  the  condition  of  its  being, 
which  is  not  to  be  conceived  as  derived  from  a  higher  end ;  by 
ultimate,  not  simply  that  which  is  last  in  time  but  also  that  which 
is  supreme  in  value;  by  objective,  that  which  is  extant  in  the 
creation  itself,  and  as  such  is  found  and  rejoiced  in  by  God. 

§  2.   Conditions  of the  Solution  of 'the  Problem — if  possible. 

1.  The  end  must  be  one,  and  as  such,  sufficiently  general  to 
include  in  one  form  of  statement  a  great  variety  of  inferior,  sub- 
ordinate ends.     Nobody  doubts  that  there  is  such  a  variety,  and 
the  question  is  as  to  the  redaction  of  all  these  under  one.     The 
problem  is  virtually  given  up  as  insoluble,  when  several  original 
ultimate  ends  are  stated. 

2.  These  subordinate  or  inferior  ends  must  be  so  included  in 
the  one  that  all  shall  be  seen  to  be  parts  of  that  one  end,  that 
they  all  can  be  referred  to  it  fairly,  as  expressive  thereof.     If 
they  cannot  be,  that  one  cannot  be  the  end,  because  there  is 
something  which  it  does  not  include.     This  is  one  of  the  strictest 
tests  of  any  theory.1     God  and  man  must  be  both  concerned  in 
this  end. 

3.  Hence,  this  end  must  be  one  which  includes  in  itself  all 
that  is  in  creation,  according  to  the  measure  and  degree  of  each 
part:  it  must  be  found  and  exemplified,  more  or  less,  in  the  whole 
of  creation,  natural,  moral,  and  spiritual.     The  sum  of  all  the 
works  and  ways  of  God  is  in  the  natural  world  with  its  moral 
ordering,  in  providence  and  in  the  kingdom  of  God's  grace — what 
is  his  end  in  all  these,  is  the  question :  it  is  necessary  to  comprise 
them  all  under  some  object  to  which  they  all  refer. 

4.  This  end,  while  it  is  to  be  fully  realized  only  at  the  end  or 
consummation  of  all  things,  yet  must  also  be  contained,  in  its 

1  In  our  view  one  of  the  strongest  objections  to  any  form  of  the  happiness 
theory  is  made  by  the  application  of  this  test. 


130  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

proper  measure  and  degree,  in  creation  as  it  is,  and  in  the  whole 
past  history  of  creation.1  It  must  not  be  inconsistent  with  what 
already  is,  but  be  illustrated  by  it:  it  must  be  an  end  which  is 
future  in  the  sense  of  complete  realization,  but  present  in  the 
sense  of  partial  realization,  at  each  point  in  the  historic  course. 
And  hence,  it  may  be  possible  for  us  to  find  the  end. 

§  3.  Statement  of  the  Theories. 

Here  as  elsewhere  there  are  two  antagonistic  views  sharply 
iu  opposition,  and  the  question  is  as  to  their  respective  rights. 
The  fundamental  contrast  is  in  the  statements:  the  ultimate, 
objective  end  is  God  himself,  God  makes  himself  the  end;  or  that 
end  is  man,  the  happiness  of  the  creature.2  The  different  theo- 
ries are  formed  either  by  taking  one  of  these  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  other,  or  by  attempting  to  reconcile  them. 

1.  The  end  is  the  happiness  of  man.     In  its  best  form  of  state- 
ment, this  theory  says  that  God  could  not  make  himself  the  end 
of  creation,    because   He  is  sufficient  unto  himself,  and  could 
need  nothing.     And  if  He  could  not  make  himself  the  end,  then 
that  can  be  found  only  in  the  creature,  and  ultimately  in  the  hap- 
piness of  the  creature — taking  happiness  very  comprehensively. 

2.  The  end  is  God  himself.     The  divine  glory  is  the  ulti- 
mate end:  in  man  there  is  no  ultimate  end,  only  means  to  the 
end.     Divine  glory  is  used  in  different  senses:  some  making  it 
equivalent  to  God  himself,  others  making  it  to  be  the  objective 
manifestation  of  God,  while  the  pleasure  of  God  in  this  is  the  sub- 
jective ground  for  the  creation. 

3.  An  attempt  at  reconciling  the  two :  that  the  good  of  man 
is  an  ultimate  and  yet  intermediate  end,  while  the  glory  of  God 
is  the  ultimate  objective  end. 

4  Another  attempt  at  reconciliation:  that  the  end  is  the 
glory  of  God  as  seen  in  the  highest  good  of  the  creature,  and 
that  this  last  is  the  objective  end. 

1  Wisner,  p.  434,  says  the  end  must  be  "future." 

2  These  respectively  form  theology  and  ethics:  they  constitute  two  great  ten« 
dencies,  the  one  making  God  to  be  all  in  all,  the  other  making  the  good  of  creat  urea 
to  be  the  ultimate  end.     The  problem  is,  their  reconciliation. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  131 

5.  That  neither  alone  is  the  end,  but  that  the  two  are  iden- 
tical: the  highest  good  is  the  divine  glory,  the   divine  glory 
is  the  highest  good.     The  mediation  is  through    love.1     Some 
seem  to  put  the  end  in  happiness  in  two  forms:  God's  delight 
in  doing  good,  and  the  happiness  of  the  creature. 

6.  The  ends  are  various,  as  much  so  as  the  whole  manifes- 
tation of  the  divine  attributes  in  the  divine  works.     This  is  to 
say  that  no  solution  is  possible;  there  is  no  last  end. 

§  4.   The  Scriptural  Argument. 

This  is  elaborated  by  President  Edwards  in  his  "  End  of  God  in 
Creation."  He  has  given  it  fully:  we  shall  give  only  a  summary. 
In  regard  to  this  Scriptural  argument  one  thing  is  certain :  either 
the  ends  are  various  or  the  divine  glory  is  the  end.  There  is  no 
passage  of  Scripture  which  asserts  that  happiness  is  the  end: 
there  are  numerous  passages  to  show  that  the  divine  glory  is 
such. 

1.  A  class  of  passages,  which  decide  only  that  God  in  some 
way — God  and  not  the  creature — as  He  is  the  source,  is  also  the 
end  of  all:   Rev.  iv.  11;  Rom.  xi.  36;   Heb.  ii.   10;  Col.  i.  16; 
Prov.  xvi.  4.     These  passages  do  not  say  what  the  end  is,  but 
do  go  to  prove  that  that  end  is  in  God. 

2.  Passages  which  more  specifically  declare  that  the  divine 
glory  is  the  end.     Scripture  sets  forth  in  a  variety  of  ways  that 
this  is  the  end  of  external  nature.     It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
the  glory  of  God  is  sometimes  designated  by  the  term  name, 
which  is  equivalent  to  nature  or  essence :  Ps.  viii.  1 ;  Isaxliii.  7 ;  Ix.  9. 

3.  Passages  which  show  that  the  end  of  the  creature  is  in 
glorifying    God.      These,    as    against    the    so-called    happiness 
theories,  are  decisive,  for  if  the  end  of  the  creature  were  the 
creature,  then  he  must  be  exhorted  to  seek  his  own  good  as  ul- 
timate; but  if  he  is  exhorted  to  seek  something  beyond  himself, 
then  the  good  of  the  creature  himself  cannot  be  the  end :  1  Cor. 
x.  31;  vi.  20;  John  xv.  8.     Also  such  passages  as  Ps.  cxxxvi.  1-9; 
cxxxviii.  5. 

4    Those  passages  which  set  forth  in  the  same  strain  that 
'  So  Twesten,  Vol.  ii.  p.  89:  and  so  perhaps  the  younger  Edwards. 


^  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

the  holy  obedience  of  the  creature  is  not  the  ultimate  end,  that 
even  this  redounds  to  the  divine  glory.  If  all  that  God  had  in 
view  was  to  insure  the  holiness  of  the  creation,  then  Scripture 
would  naturally  stop  short  with  that,  but  such  holiness  is  said  to 
reach  beyond,  and  to  redound  to  the  glory  of  God.  Isa.  Ixi.  3, 
where  the  glorifying  of  God  is  not  made  the  means  of  the  holi- 
ness of  his  people,  but  the  converse  is  stated;  Eph.  i.  5,  where 
we  have  the  subjective  end  in  the  creature  or  the  creature's  sub- 
jective end,  "the  being  adopted  as  children,"  the  subjective 
divine  end,  "the  good  pleasure  of  his  will,"  and  the  objective 
divine  end,  "  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  his  grace.1'  2  Thess.  i.  10; 
Phil.  i.  10,  11;  2  Cor.  i.  20,  "unto  the  glory  of  God  by  [or 
through]  us" 

5.  Passages  which  show  the  end  of  Christ's  work  to  be  the 
glory  of  God.  John  xii.  28;  xvii.  4;  Phil.  ii.  6-11. 

The  result  of  the  Scriptural  teaching  then  is,  that  this  world 
is  a  revelation  of  the  divine  glory,  and  that  God's  being  glorified 
by  it  is  its  chief  end.1 

§  5.  The  supreme  End  of  Creation  is  the  Declarative  Glory  of 
God. 

By  the  declarative  glory  of  God  is  meant,  the  manifestation 
of  the  internal  divine  glory.  The  word  glory  is  used  in  the 
Scriptures,  in  reference  to  God,  in  several  distinct  senses:  (a.) 
For  the  divine  internal  perfections,  the  inherent  excellency  of 
God's  nature  and  attributes;  (b.)  In  the  sense  of  the  manifesta- 
tion of  this  inherent  excellency,  of  the  internal  made  external  or 
"extant";  (c.)  For  the  rendering  of  praise  to  God  on  both 
accounts,  for  his  internal  and  external  glory;  as  when  we  give 

1  Edwards,  ii.  242,  says,  "  an  ultimate  end  of  God  is  the  communication  of  good 
to  his  creatures  as  something  not  merely  subordinately  agreeable,"  yet  this  is  "not 
what  he  delights  in  simply  and  ultimately."  John  xvii.  19;  Isa.  liii.  11;  and  in 
short,  all  the  Scriptures  which  set  forth  God's  goodness,  mercy,  grace,  that  He 
desireth  not  the  death  of  any,  rejoices  in  his  people,  delights  in  doing  good,  etc. 
There  is  no  question  that  the  communication  of  good  to  creatures,  is  an  ulti* 
mate  end,  in  the  sense  of  being  a  good  in  itself. 

Such  passages  as  the  following  are  sometimes  brought  to  supjort  the  position 
that  the  highest  good  of  creatures  is  the  ultimate  end.     Ps.  civ.  viii.  5;  cxix.  Q-i 
Acts  xiv.  17;  xvii.  24.     These  prove  simply  the  reality  of  God's  goodness 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  133 

glory  to  God.  [Another  sometimes  given  as  (d),  The  glory 
which  God  has  in  his  creatures,  comes  properly  under  (6.).]  The 
second  is  the  sense  intended  in  the  proposition  here  maintained : 
the  first  is  the  ground  and  the  third  is  the  result  of  the  second. 
The  second  is  the  true  end.  (Christ  is  also  called  the  glory  of 
God,  and  the  Shechinah  is  perhaps  a  form  or  radiance  symbolical 
of  all  the  declarative  glory.) 

I. — To  explain  the  proposition  negatively: 

1.  It  does  not  mean  that  this  glory  is  separable,  in  re,  from 
other  ends  subordinate  to  this  and  included  in  it.     It  is  seen  in 
those  other  ends,  in  the  good  and  the  happiness  of  the  creature. 

2.  Nor  does  the  proposition  mean  that  the  receiving  glory 
from  others  is  the  end.     The  receiving  of  glory  is  an  end,  in- 
cluded in  the  supreme  end,  but  is  not  itself  the  supreme.     God 
did  not  create  in  order  to  receive  glory,  but  to  make  his  glory 
extant  and  manifest. 

3.  Nor  is  it  meant  that  God  had  ultimate  respect  to  himself 
(subjectively)  in  such  manifestation  of  himself,  that  his  joy  in 
the  manifestation  was  the  final  cause  thereof.     This  is  the  sub- 
jective happiness  scheme  as  applied  to  God.    He  undoubtedly  does 
rejoice  in  his  work,  but  we  cannot  say  that  He  did  it  in  order  tc 
rejoice  in  it.     Some  have  taken  this  view,1  but  this  representation 
of  the  matter  is  the  chief  reason  why  it  is  argued  that  the  mak- 
ing the  divine  glory  the  chief  end  of  creation  is  a  selfish  pro- 
ceeding.2     We  prefer  the  statement  that  the  joy  of  God  in  his 
work  was  the  ultimate  subjective  end  in  his  mind,  but  was  not 
the  objective  motive  for  the  creation  itself. 

4.  Nor  does  the  proposition  mean  that  in  creation  God  had 
not  a  true  and  an  ultimate  regard  to  the  highest  good  of  his 
creatures.     He  must,  as  a  God  of  love,  as  a  God  who  delights  in 
what  is  best,  have  had  such  a  regard.     The  creature  is  not  to 
be  sacrificed,  the  good  of  the  creature  is  to  be  estimated  at  its 
proper  value,  but  it  must  also  be  maintained  that  the  supreme 

1  So  Dr.  Spring.     See  President  Day  on  the  connection  between  this  and  the 
self-love  theory  of  morals. 

2  Edwards,  ch.  i.  §  3,  Works,  ii.  207-11,  explains  "making  himself  the  end" 
as  meaning  the  communication  to  others  of  himself,  the  impulse  of  and  pleasure 
in  self-communication:  «'  a  disposition  to  diffuse  and  communicate  himself." 


134  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

end  is  as  much  larger  than  the  creature,  as  God  is  larger.  God 
the  infinite  Being  cannot  have  ultimate  respect  to  finite  beings 
and  their  happiness.  There  is  no  inconsistency  between  the 
two  views,  that  in  creation  God  had  respect  to  his  own  glory  as 
ultimate,  and  that  He  regards  also  as  a  real  good,  and  desires 
for  its  own  sake,  the  highest  welfare  of  his  creatures.1 

II. — Meaning  of  the  proposition  stated  affirmatively. 

The  objective  end  of  God  in  the  whole  created  universe,  i.  e., 
the  end  which  He  had  as  objective  to  himself,  was  to  manifest, 
in  the  most  complete  way,  the  sum  of  the  divine  perfections  or 
the  internal  divine  glory,  in  such  a  way  as  to  ensure  as  a  sub- 
ordinate end  the  highest  good  of  his  creatures,  by  their  partici- 
pation in  this  manifestation.  (This  is  shown  to  be  a  subordinate 
end  by  the  fact  that  the  highest  good  of  the  creature  is  found 
in  glorifying  God.)  Creation  is  the  mirror  of  Deity,  and  as 
such  it  is  the  objective  end  of  God.  We  mean  of  course  by  crea- 
tion, all  that  is  not  God.  It  is  the  whole  system  that  is  the 
objective  end  of  God.  The  end  is  not  in  individuals  or  their 
state,  but  in  these  as  parts  of  the  whole  plan,  in  relation  and 
subordination  thereto.  The  whole  system,  as  reflecting  God, 
is  the  end. 

1.  In  what  does  the  internal  divine  glory  consist,  which  we 
here  declare  to  be  set  forth  in  creation  ?     It  is  the  radiant  sum 
of  all  the  divine  perfections.     These  may  be  viewed  as  consist- 
ing of  four  chief  excellences :  (a.)  The  infinitude  of  God's  Being, 
including  his  power,  his  resources;  (6.)  The  perfection  of  his  wis- 
dom; (c.)  His  absolute  holiness;  (d.)  His  perfect  love. 

2.  The  declarative  glory  consists  in  setting  forth  these  per- 
fections, in  manifesting  them,  making  them  to  be  extant,  which 
is  the  objective  end  of  the  Creation.     And  this  may  be  said  to 
be  done: 

(a.)  As  regards  the  infinitude  of  the  divine  being,  compris- 
ing the  immensity  and  eternity  of  God,  in  the  existence  of  in- 

1  Dwight,  Sermon  XXV.,  holds  that  it  is  God's  end  to  glorify  himself:  "the 
manifestation  of  his  inherent  glory  "  is  what  is  intended  by  the  glorifying  of  God. 
"To  show  his  own  character,  to  unfold  his  power,  knowledge,  and  goodness  tc 
oeings  capable  of  understanding  them,  was  the  supreme  object  He  had  in  view." 
But  Dr.  Dwight  makes  all  to  culminate  in  benevolence. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  135 

finite  space  and  unending  time,  which  are  the  conditions  of  all 
finite  existence.  These  mirror  forth  the  divine  immensity  and 
eternity.1  The  power  of  God  is  also  mirrored  in  the  energies 
which  act  through  the  creation. 

(b.)  The  perfect  wisdom  of  God  is" set  forth  in  the  whole  order 
of  creation,  and  in  the  plan  which  is  there  found,  running  through 
all  the  orders  of  existence  and  culminating  in  man  and  in  human 
history,  where  God's  divinest  purpose  is  seen  in  the  imparting 
the  knowledge  of  himself  to  his  creatures. 

(c.)  God's  absolute  holiness  is  revealed  in  the  giving  of  his 
law,  and  making  rational  creatures  capable  of  knowing  it  as 
holy,  and  further  in  making  all  that  is  transacted  in  history  to 
show  the  supremacy  and  triumph  of  his  holiness.  The  holiness 
of  God  is  the  consent  of  his  will  and  his  wisdom,  constituting 
his  supreme  moral  excellence.  This  holiness  is  his  essential 
goodness — love  in  the  broadest  sense. 

(c?.)  God's  perfect  love — love  in  the  narrower  sense  as  the  at- 
tribute  which  prompts  Him  to  communicate  to  others — is  poured 
forth  and  exemplified,  in  imparting  good  to  all  his  creatures,  and 
BO  that  He  himself  is  the  supreme  object  in  which  that  good  is 
found,  as  He  is  the  real  source  of  it,  the  highest  good  and  joy  of 
creatures  being  found  in  glorifying  Him.  This  is  seen  most 
fully  in  his  gracious  purpose  of  redemption. 

These  are  the  several  particulars  into  which  the  divine  glory 
both  as  internal  and  external  may  be  distributed.  The  enumer- 
ation is  not  exhaustive,  but  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose. 

The  sense  in  which  God  makes  himself  his  end2  is,  then, 

1  [Of  course  the  question  is  here  raised  whether  space  and  time  belong  to  the 
creation.     The  following  hints  of  the  author's  view  of  this  are  gathered  from  his 
papers:— Certainly,  absolute  immensity  and  eternity  do  not  belong  to  the  creation, 
but  time  as  successive  and  finite,  and  as  indefinite  in  duration,  and  space  as  lim- 
ited and  indefinite  in  extent,  do. — It  is  a  false  view  that  God  exists  in  all  space 
and  time;  his  eternity  and  immensity  precisely  are — his  not  existing  in  space  and 
time. — Spaca  and  time  are  not  attributes  of  the  infinite,  they  are  not  substances 
or  entities,  they  are  not  relations;  but  if  they  were  any  of  these  it  would  hold  true 
that  they  cannot  belong  to  the  uncreated  or  the  unconstituted,  for  then  that  which 
is  finite — in  its  parts,  though  immeasurable  as  a  whole — would  be  uncreated. 
Conceive  them  as  merely  subjective  phenomena,  and  even  then  they  come  into 
being  as  such  phenomena,  with  finite  existences.] 

2  Undoubtedly  there  is  a  sense  in  which  God  (as  no  creature  can)  maken 
himself  his  end. 


136  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

simply  this:  that  He  delights  most  in  that  system  which  best 
sets  forth  his  own  perfection.1 

§  6.  Arguments  in  Favor  of  this  Position. 

1.  It  is  most  accordant  with  the  Scriptures.     See  above. 

2.  It  is  the  highest  conceivable  end  for  God  himself.     In 
respect  to  his  creation,  nothing  more  comprehensive  or  complete 
can  be  conceived  of  than  this:  that  it  should  mirror  forth  the 
divine  perfections,  so  far  as  this  can  be  done  by  what  is  limited 
and  finite.     This  is  the  idea  of  the  world,  the  divine  plan  of 
things.     All  things  here  are  from  God  and  for  God.     The  splen- 
dor of  his  glory  irradiates  them,  is  seen  through  them.2     If 
there  is  any  shining,  it  is  the  glory  of  Deity.3     And  this  which 
is  a  positive  result  is  a  higher  result  than  doing  good  to  sen- 
tient creatures,   than   benevolent  activity:    for   that  is  only  a 
part  of  God's  ways;  it  is  an  integral  part,   an  ultimate  end, 
but  the  highest  result  must  be  the  highest  end. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  in  the  way  of  objection,  that  this 
seems  to  argue  a  display  of  the  divine  perfections  for  the 
sake  of  display.  The  answer  is  plain:  It  is  not  display,  in 
any  evil  interpretation,  for  the  sake  of  the  glory  accruing, 
or  for  any  outward  sake;  it  is  such  a  display  as  everything 
that  has  fulness  of  life  is  prompted  to  by  its  very  fulness. 
It  is  such  a  display  as  is  that  of  the  acorn  in  becoming  an 
oak.  It  is  such  a  manifestation  as  a  poet  makes  of  himself, 
when  he  pours  out  the  fulness  of  his  soul  in  an  epic  or  drama. 
The  end  for  which  the  true  genius  makes  the  epic  or  the  sys- 

1  In  this  system  we  find  several  ultimate  ends  in  the  sense  of  results  good 
in  themselves.  The  divine  wisdom,  in  the  plan  and  order  of  creation;  the  divine 
holiness,  in  the  moral  constitution  and  ordering;  the  divine  love,  in  providence; 
the  divine  grace,  where  holiness  and  love  are  concurrent,  in  the  work  of  redemp- 
tion; and  happiness  occurring  in  and  by  each  and  all  of  these.  The  grand 
objective  end  is  God's  union  with  man  through  Christ  in  a  divine  kingdom. 
Here  the  glory  of  wisdom,  holiness,  and  love  all  concur.  Here  the  material  (in 
the  new  heavens  and  earth),  the  moral,  the  spiritual  or  gracious,  all  find  their 
unity  of  ends. 

5  Hegel  says  that  the  great  end  of  his  primitive  substance  is,  to  become  ob- 
jective to  itself,  and  he  declares  this  the  ultimate  statement  in  philosophy;  so 
that  here  Pantheism  is  compelled  to  do  a  sort  of  homage  to  old  Orthodoxy. 

3  The  positive  philosophy  has  given  us  as  the  alternative:  "The  heavens 
declare  no  glory  save  that  of  Kepler  and  Newton." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  137 

tern  of  philosophy  is,  to  satisfy  the  longings  of  his  being 
for  a  full  expression  of  itself.  So  God  sets  forth  himself  in 
his  works;  in  the  universal  epic  of  all  nature,  in  the  grand 
drama  of  history,  in  the  whole  system  of  things  which  is 
ensouled  by  himself;  his  archetypal  ideas  are  expressed  and 
symbolized  in  all  nature  and  history.  And  what  higher  di- 
vine end  can  we  conceive? 

3.  A  third  argument  is  that  the  end  here  assigned  is  alone 
sufficiently  comprehensive  to  be  the  true  end  of  all  God's  ways 
in  creation.1  It  has  the  advantage  of  comprising  in  subordi- 
nation other  ultimate  ends,  subsuming  them  under  this  one 
For  example,  the  great  end  of  the  material  creation  is  included 
here.  "The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God."  It  is  very 
difficult  to  bring  what  we  find  in  nature  under  the  idea  of 
happiness  as  the  chief  end.  For  what  end  were  the  hosts 
of  heaven  made  ?  To  fill  the  beholders  with  sublimity,  it  may  be 
said:  but  this  gives  us  use  for  a  small  part  only  of  the  heavens, 
and  gives  us  an  inadequate  end  even  then.  How  late  were 
the  discoveries  in  astronomy!  How  impossible  to  bring  under 
the  idea  of  happiness  many  of  the  discoveries  in  science !  We 
find  order,  wisdom,  manifestation  of  mind.  Doing  good  to 
sentient  and  intelligent  creatures  can  be  included  under  the 
3ne  supreme  end  of  manifesting  the  divine  perfections,  for  in 
ill  his  works  of  goodness  the  glory  of  the  divine  love  is 
manifested.  So  also  the  maintenance  of  holiness  in  the  uni- 
verse is  a  revelation  of  God's  essential  holiness,  and  the  blessed- 
ness which  He  gives  in  redemption  is  a  joy  in  himself,  in 
the  sum  of  his  own  divine  perfections. 

It  is  objected  that  the  end  here  stated  is  too  general;  but 
what  we  are  seeking  is,  a  sufficiently  comprehensive  view  to 
include  the  whole  range  of  the  divine  manifestations.     If  the 
.end  were  so  indefinite  as  not  to  allow  of  being  distributed, 
as  not  to  include  fairly  all  the  other  ends  as  subordinate  to 
itself,   the   objection   would   be  valid.     But   its   value   is,   that 
it  is  a  general  statement  under  which  all  the  others  may  be 
brought;  and  therefore  we  remark,  as  our  next  argument, 
1  This  alone  agrees  with  the  definition  of  "  end  "  given  by  Kant 


138  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

4.  It  is  also  an  end  which,  while  fully  realized  only  at  the 
consummation  of  all  things,  is  found  going  on  and  illustrated 
in  all  that  has  been  and  is.     This  glory  of  God,  consisting  in 
making  himself  extant  to  his  creatures,  began  with  creation, 
when  the  morning  stars  sang  together;  it  is  illustrated  in  all  the 
tribes  and  orders  of  creation ;  it  is  seen  in  Paradise  with  its  prime- 
val goodness;  it  looks  out  upon  us  through  the  whole  course 
of  human  history;  it  descended  incarnate  in  the  person  of  our 
Lord ;  through  the  centuries  since  his  coming  it  has  been  grow- 
ing more  and  more  radiant;  and  the  full  carrying  out  of  the 
divine  idea  in  the  future  history  of  the  earth  will  bring  about 
its  consummation,  even  to  the  ushering  in  of  that  day  when 
Christ  shall  give  up  the  dominion  to  the  Father,  that  God  may 
be  all  in  all. 

And  thus  are  all  the  conditions  which  we  proposed  of  a  right 
solution  of  the  problem  met  in  this  most  comprehensive  state- 
ment of  the  end  of  God  in  creation.  To  this  we  might  add 

5.  That  no  other  view  does  meet  these  conditions;  but  as 
there  is  confessedly  only  one  other  view,  we  defer  consideration 
of  that  until  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Greatest  Happiness  scheme. 

§  7.   Consideration  of  Objections. 

1.  It  is  said  that  a  selfish  scheme  of  the  universe  is  presented 
when  the  end  of  creation  is  made  to  be  the  glory  of  God.1  Here 
we  might  concede  that  to  say  simply  and  without  qualification 
that  God  made  everything  for  himself,  for  his  glory,  is  to  use 
language  which  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  Such  forms  of 
expression  may  not  convey  the  real  truth  which  we  hold.  In 
reply  to'  the  objection,  we  say, 

(a.)  Even  if  God  "made  himself"  the  end,  He  could  not  be 
selfish  in  this.  Even  if  it  were  strictly  true  that  God  made  all 
things  for  himself,  yet  his  love  to  himself,  as  Edwards  remarks, 
3annot  be  a  selfish  love,  a  preference  of  the  individual  to  the 
universal,  of  the  narrow  to  the  general;  for  in  loving  himself 
He  "in  effect"  loves  all,  and  in  acting  for  himself  He  in  effect 

1  Pres.  Day  even  seems  to  argue  that  this  view  gives  support  to  the  self-love 
theory  of  morals.     But  read  Edwards,  ii.  215,  etc. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  139 

acts  for  the  universe ;  for  in  displaying  himself,  what  does  He 
do  but  simply  bring  the  universe  and  all  the  good  and  glory 
and  happiness  of  it  into  being  ? 

But  (b.)  God  does  not  make  himself  the  end  as  alleged.  He 
made  the  universe,  not  in  order  to  gratify  himself  as  the  great 
end,  although  He  does  delight  therein,  but  to  manifest  himself, 
for  the  sake  of  his  declarative  glory.  That  is  the  objective  rea- 
son; the  subjective  delight  therein  is  not  the  rational  ground, 
the  final  cause  and  end  of  the  creation.  And  this  considera- 
tion does  away  with,  or  rather  puts  in  its  true  light,  the  main 
objection. 

2.  It  is  also  objected  that  this  scheme  leads  to  the  inference 
that  God  created  some  men  in  order  to  damn  them,  in  order 
that,  by  their  perdition,  the  awfuluess  of  the  divine  justice  might 
be  glorified.     Such  a  representation  may  have  been  favored  by 
the  incautious  language  of  some  writers.     But  the  fact  is,  that 
the  punishment  of  the  individual  sinner  or  of  all  sinners  is  not 
truly  and  properly  to  be  called  an  ultimate  end,  that  is,  a  good 
in  itself.     The  punishment  when  inflicted  does  doubtless  illus- 
trate the  terrible  splendor  of  the  divine  holiness,  but  the  end  of 
the  divine  holiness  even  is  not  punishment.     That  the  punish- 
ment of  the  transgressor  is  not  an  ultimate  end  is  proved  by 
the  fact  of  an  atonement,  by  pardon  on  the  ground  of  an  atone- 
ment.    If  it  were  an  ultimate  end,  a  good  in  itself,  there  could 
not  be  transfer;  Christ  could  not  suffer  in  the  place  of  the  trans- 
gressor.    God  did  not  create  any  man  in  order  to  punish  him.1 

3.  It  is  asked,  which  is  better,  a  system  in  which  God's  glory 
is  the  means  of  the  creature's  good,  or  one  in  which  the  creature's 
good  is  the  means  of  God's  glory  ?  and  it  is  argued  that  that  is 
better  in  which  God's  whole  aim  is  to  do  good  to  his  creatures, 
rather  than  a  system  in  which  the  creature  is — relatively — sac- 

1  [No  more,  says  the  author,  than  He  made  the  race-horse,  which  was  driven 
one  hundred  miles  in  eight  hours  and  died  at  the  end,  for  such  inhuman  sport 
of  man.  If  there  is  perversion  of  his  work  and  this  is  visited  with  his  holy  dis- 
pleasure, this  does  not  prove  that  He  did  his  work  in  order  that  it  might  be 
perverted.  The  same  argument  would  seem  to  apply  in  reference  to  Darwin's 
question,  whether  divine  intelligence  made  the  bull-dog  in  order  that  brutal  ineu 
might  delight  in  its  ferocity.] 


140  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

rificed  to  the  divine  glory.     This  comes  to  be  more  fully  con- 
sidered elsewhere;  here  we  only  say,  that  that  is  the  best  system 
which  puts  the  two,  man  and  God,  in  their  just  relations  to  each 
other.     And  a  system  which,  while  it  allows  that  God  does  all 
good  to  his  creatures  according  to  the  promptings  of  his  infinite 
love  and  the  dictates  of  his  infinite  wisdom,  yet  asserts  that  He 
does  also  more  than  this,  is  a  higher  and  better  system  than 
ne  which  restricts  the  whole  agency  of  God  to  a  single  form 
if  activity.     If  we  distinguish  between  the  objective  end  of  the 
ystem  and  its  subjective  end  in  relation  to  creatures,1  we  have 
mple  grounds  of  comparison  and  judgment.    The  objective  end 
)f  creation  is  the  making  extant  of  the  divine  perfections;  the 
ubjective  end  of  that  same  system  is  the   promotion  of  the 
nighest  good — not  happiness  merely — of  creatures.     And  this 
subjective  end  of  the  system  is  found  in  creatures  becoming 
participants  of,  finding  their  highest  good — and  therewith  their 
highest  happiness — in,  the  objective  end  of  the  system :  in  the 
fact  that  man's  chief  end  is  to  glorify  God;  and  thus  these  two 
ends  are  in  the  last  result  one  end.2 

§  8.   The  Happiness  Theory. 

The  other  system,  that  which  puts  the  end  of  God  in  creation 
in  the  happiness  of  the  creature,  or  in  the  greatest  happiness  of 
the  whole  system,  is  comparatively  imperfect  and  narrow  in 
several  points.  Full  discussion  of  it  would  come  up  later,  under 
the  head  of  The  Nature  of  True  Virtue;  here  we  only  consider: 

1.  There   cannot   be   subordinated   to   this   end   all  that  is 

1  ["Subjective"  here  has  a  different  meaning  from  what  it  has  in  the  distinction 
made  between  God's  objective  and  "subjective  "  end  in  creation.    It  means  now, 
the  sense  which  intelligent  creatures  have  of  the  excellency  of  God's  objective 
end  in  creation.] 

2  Compare  Edwards,  ii.  219.     "God  and  the  creature  in  this  affair  of  the  ema- 
nation [it  must  be  remembered  that  in  Edwards's  time  Pantheists  had  not  appro- 
priated this  word  as  they  have  now;  otherwise  he  doubtless  would  not  have  used 
it]  of  the  divine  fulness  are  not  properly  set  in  opposition,  or  made  opposite  parts 
of  a  disjunction.     Nor  ought  God's  glory  and  the  creature's  good  to  be  spoken 
of  as  if  they  were  properly  and  entirely  distinct,  as  they  are  in  the  objection." 
"God  in  seeking  his  glory,  therein  seeks  the  good  of  his  creatures.     Because  the 
emanation  of  his  glory  (which  He  seeks  and  delights  in  as  He  delights  in  him- 
self,  his  own  eternal  glory)  implies  the  communicated  happiness  and  excellency 
<tf  his  creatures."     "  God  is  their  good." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  141 

found  in  the  creation.  All  that  is,  cannot  be  explained  in  re-la. 
tion  to  happiness,  still  less  to  human  happiness.  The  vastnesa 
and  sublimity  of  the  creation  are  degraded  when  they  are  con- 
sidered simply  in  regard  to  the  emotions  they  may  excite.  Their 
adequate  end  is  found  in  their  exemplifying  the  wisdom  of  God, 
thus  manifesting  his  glory ;  while  the  happiness  which  they  con- 
fer is  subordinate  and  resulting. 

2.  This  scheme  does  not  account  for  the  creation,  but  only 
for  God's  conduct  to  a  creation  already  in  being.     Creatures  ex- 
isting, God  may  be  said  to  delight  in  doing  them  good;  but  this 
does  not  answer  the  question,  Why  did  God  create  them  ?     He 
created  them  for  a  variety  of  purposes,  one  of  which  was  that 
He  might  do  good  to  them,  but  this  was  not  the  whole.     The 
doing  good  to  them  supposes  them  to  be,  and  therefore  it  could 
not  be  the  ground  of  their  being  brought  into  existence.1 

3.  This  theory  begs  the  question  (at  least  for  us  at  present) 
upon  the  most  important  ethical  question,  viz.,  whether  happi- 
ness be  the  highest  good.     If  the  affirmative  of  that  question 
cannot  be  held,  the  theory  cannot  be  maintained. 

4  When  framed  to  accord  with  the  "subjective  happiness" 
view  of  the  nature  of  virtue,  the  theory  leads  to  the  inference: 
Jf  God's  highest  end  be  the  creature's  happiness,  then  the  crea- 
ture should  seek  his  own  happiness  in  all  that  he  does,  as  the 
supreme  end;  thus  giving  a  most  vicious  ethical  theory. 

5.  When  happiness  is  taken  in  a  larger  sense,  the  term  be 
comes  indefinite  and  the  theory  that  happiness  is  the  end  of  the 
creation  becomes  vague.  If  the  word  happiness  be  made  to  take 
in  all  happiness,  including  the  divine  blessedness,  and  to  include 
a  peculiar  kind  of  happiness,  that  arising  from  holiness,  i.  e.,  to 
take  in  all  that  is  good  in  the  system,  all  that  can  be  appreciated 
and  be  the  ground  of  satisfaction  to  God  and  to  finite  intelligences, 
then  of  course  we  simply  come  out  upon  the  statement  that  the 
subjective  end  of  creation  is  commensurate  with  its  objective  end. 
God  created  the  universe  to  manifest  his  own  perfections,  and  in 
the  manifestation  He  has  his  own  subjective  joy  and  intends  that 
his  creatures  shall  have  theirs.  But  that  which  is  highest  and 
1  Compare  Edwards,  ii.  206. 


CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

best  in  the  system  is  distinct  from  the  appreciation  and  love  of 
what  is  highest  and  best,  which  is  the  source  of  the  truest  hap- 
piness. If  the  highest  happiness  is  made  synonymous  with  the 
highest  good  of  the  whole  system,  we  have  one  of  two  things: 
either  a  restatement  of  the  subjective  happiness  view  or  a  vague 
use  of  language.  If  the  meaning  be,  that  the  end  of  the  whole 
system  is  the  highest  happiness  of  individual  beings,  we  come 
back  to  the  inference  that  the  individual  should  seek  his  own 
happiness  as  his  highest  end;  if  it  be  said  that  what  is  meant  by 
the  highest  happiness  is,  that  which  constitutes  the  goodness  of 
the  system  taken  as  a  whole,  this  leaves  the  question  open,  what 
does  constitute  such  goodness  of  the  whole  system :  its  reflection 
of  the  divine  glory  or  its  power  of  producing  happiness  ?  If  the 
meaning  be,  that  the  great  end  of  the  system  is  the  sum  of 
good  which  is  in  it,  all  of  which  is  appreciable  and  capable  of 
producing  happiness  either  in  God  or  in  man  or  in  both,  then 
there  is  no  objection  to  the  view,  but  it  would  seem  best  to  keep 
to  the  common  use  of  terms,  and  not  confound  the  happiness 
with  the  good  from  which  it  arises. 

In  fact,  the  happiness  scheme  if  consistently  carried  out,  would 
lead  to  the  position  that  the  glory  of  God  in  the  whole  system  is 
the  great  end  in  creation.  All  the  happiness  of  all  the  good, 
taking  it  in  its  largest  sense,  is  derived  from  God,  is  only  a 
participation  on  their  part  of  what  God  gives.  What  God 
reveals  in  the  system  is  the  objective  ground  or  source  of  the 
happiness:  the  creature's  happiness  is  found  in  having  part  in 
that;  and  if  we  could  suppose  the  creature's  happiness  so  great 
as  to  be  co-extensive  with  this,  still  it  would  be  dependent  upon 
this  manifestation  or  revelation  of  God,  and  thus  the  happiness 
will  be  merely  the  accruing  good. 

§  9.  The  Connection  between  the  View  of  the  End  of  God  in 
Creation  and  the  Theory  of  the  Nature  of  Virtue. 

1.  That  which  is  the  great  end  of  God's  work  in  creation 
must  be  the  summum  bonum  to  his  creatures  also;  for  their  high- 
est good  can  only  be  found  in  subjection  to  or  harmony  with 
the  great  end  for  which  all  is  made. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  143 

2.  This  end,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  whole  system  of  things, 
considered  as  declarative  of  God's  inherent  perfections,  terminat- 
ing in  redemption  and  the  union  of  himself  with  man ;  all  oi 
which  declare  his  glory. 

3.  Man's  chief  end  must  then  be  found  in  his  harmony  with 
this  system ;  in  glorifying  God  and  enjoying  Him  forever. 

4.  The  subjective  condition  of  man's  doing  this  is,  his  love  to 
the  whole  system  of  things  as  declarative  of  God,  or  to  God  as 
declared  in  the  whole  system. 

5.  Ultimately  then,  in  the  last  analysis,  love  to  God  as  being 
4  in  effect"  all  being,  is  the  root  and  ground  of  all  true  virtue. 

§  10.  Some  historical  Statements  as  to  Theories  of  God's  End 
in  Creation. 

Justiri  Martyr:   TtpoS  erdsi&v  rrjS  SeiaS  avrov  dvvajLisooS. 

Origen,  de  Princ.  ii.  9,  6:  "[Deus]  nullam  habuit  aliam  creandi 
causam,  nisi  propter  se  ipsum,  id  est,  bonitatem  suam." 

Greg.  Naz.  Orat.  xxxviii. :  "  God's  goodness  was  not  content 
with  the  purely  immanent  activity  of  self-contemplation,  but 
would  pour  itself  out  and  multiply  itself  externally." 

Aquinas,  Summa  I.  Q.  44,  iv. :  "Communicare  suam  perfection- 
em,  quse  est  ejus  bonitas." 

Bonaventura:  "The  honor  of  God,  i.  e.,  to  reveal  and  impart 
his  glory,  and  thus  at  the  same  time  to  promote  the  highest 
good  of  creatures." 

The  Calvinistic  theologians  who  have  been  led  by  the  very 
nature  of  their  system  to  dwell  much  on  this  subject,  have 
adopted  the  general  position  of  Augustine ;  the  glory  of  God  is 
the  end  of  creation. 

Zwingle,  iv.  81:  ".  .  .  .  ita  bona  sunt,  ut  ab  illo  bono  sunt,  ut 
ii,  illo  bono  sunt  et  ut  ad  illius  boni  gloriarn  sunt." 

Calvin,  Inst.  I.  v.  5:  "  Mundus  in  spectaculum  glories  Dei 
conditus  est." 

A  common  representation  is,  that  the  glory  of  God  consists 
in  the  manifestation  of  his  love  in  salvation,  and  of  his  justice  in 
condemnation,  and  that  these  together  make  up  the  glory  of  the 
divine  holiness^  which  is  to  be  taken  as  the  ultimate  end.  The 


114  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

supralapsarian  theology  emphasized  the  statement,  that  God 
decreed  the  creation  of  a  reprobate  portion  of  mankind  in  order 
that  He  might  show  forth  the  glory  of  his  justice. 

The  general  Calvinistic  view  is:  The  objective  end  is  the  di 
vine  glory ;  the  subjective,  the  good  of  creatures.  All  that  is, 
is  from  God  and  for  God — a  self-revelation  or  manifestation  of 
God.  "  The  highest  end  is  the  manifestation  of  God — finis  ob- 
jectivus,  ultimus,  est  gloria  Dei:  the  subordinate  end" — our  chief 
end — "is  the  glorifying  of  God  in  our  salvation — finis  subjectivus, 
subordinatus,  est  salus  nostra"  (Cf.  Schweizer,  I.  135). 

Stapfer,  I.  122 :  "  Finis  existentiae  hujus  mundi  est  manifest- 
atio  glorise  divinae." 

Wendelin,  3:  "Finis — est  glorificatio  Dei  et  nostra  salus;  hie 
finis  proximus,  ille  finis  summus." 

The  school  of  Kant  urges  that  the  harmony  of  virtue  and  happi- 
ness is  the  highest  good,  and  so  the  chief  end  of  all  things.  (But 
this  confines  the  end  to  the  sphere  of  the  rational  and  moral.) 

Bretschneider,  I.  670-1  (for  substance):  "The  last  ground 
of  creation,  which  is  also  its  last  end,  cannot  be  objective,  but 
must  be  subjective,  and  is  to  be  sought  in  God  himself.  (God's 
independence  obliges  us  to  seek  the  ground  of  all  his  purposes 

in  himself.)     But  we  do  not  fully  know  what  it  is So  much 

we  know:  it  must  be  an  expression  of  the  divine  ideas,  a  rev- 
elation of  God,  a  mirror  and  image  of  his  perfection.  Its  im- 
mensity corresponds  with  omnipotence;  its  order  to  the  divine 
wisdom;  its  well-being  to  God's  goodness;  to  his  holiness  and 
justice,  rational  [moral]  beings.  The  revelation  of  his  majesty 
to  rational  beings  is  a  subordinate  end;  the  revelation  of  his 
perfection,  for  its  own  sake,  must  be  the  highest  end." 

Ebrard,  Dogm.  I.  358:  "The  last  end  for  which  the  world  was 
made  must  be  the  glorifying  of  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  i.  e., 
of  God  as  holy,  blessed,  and  wise.  And  since  it  is  personal  beings 
(men  and  angels)  in  whom  these  moral  attributes  are  glorified 
— and  that  in  the  way  of  their  blessedness — it  follows  that  the 
glorifying  of  the  ethico-Trinitarian  nature  of  God  in  the  blessing 
of  finite  subjects,  is  the  last  end  to  which  the  providence  of  God 
is  directed** 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  145 

Edwards.  The  following  seems  to  be,  for  substance,  the 
view  of  Pres.  Edwards,  especially  as  unfolded  in  his  last  section : 
Other  ultimate  ends  (i.  e.,  results  good  in  themselves)  are  in- 
stances, exemplifications,  all  of  them  of  the  one  end,  i.  e.,  the 
manifestation  of  the  internal  divine  glory — are  different  modes  and 
degrees  of  this  manifestation;  not  means  to  that  end,  strictly, 
so  that  they  are  sacrificed  to  it — but  higher  and  lower  modes  of 
realizing  it.  And  the  highest  mode,  within  the  creation,  in 
respect  to  the  creatures,  is,  the  communication  of  the  divine 
love,  in  the  form  of  grace,  reuniting  man  with  God.  This  is  the 
highest,  brightest  manifestation  of  the  divine  love,  in  respect  to 
the  creatures.  But  this  is  still,  in  respect  to  God's  end  or  total 
plan,  a. form  or  mode  of  the  divine  declarative  glory. — Some  of 
President  Edwards's  statements,  as  when  he  argues,  ii.  207-11, 
that  God  makes  himself  the  end,  might  at  first  sight  seem  in- 
consistent with  this,  but  a  careful  study  of  that  in  connection 
with  the  last  section  shows,  that  he  could  not  have  meant  it  in 
any  sense  which  implied  a  supreme  regard  to  himself  as  self; 
though  on  this  point  he  is  not  always  entirely  consistent. 

The  younger  Edwards  thus  represents  his  father's  views  (Cf. 
Remarks  on  Improvements,  I.  481):  "The  declarative  glory  of 
God  is  the  creation,  taken  not  distributively  but  collectively,  as 
a  system  raised  to  a  high  degree  of  happiness.  The  creation 
thus  raised  and  preserved  is  the  declarative  glory  of  God.  ID 
other  words  it  is  the  exhibition  of  his  essential  glory."  This, 
though  in  form  a  reconciliation  of  the  two  theories  as  to  God's 
end  in  creation,  is  in  fact  a  sacrificing  of  the  divine  glory  as  an 
independent  ultimate  end;  the  glory  is  put  in  the  happiness.  It 
is  not  his  father's  theory,  which  expressly  subordinates  the  hap- 
piness to  the  glory. 


146  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGF. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    THEODICY.       THE    QUESTION   OF   THE    BEST   SYSTEM. 

The  word  Theodicy  is  used  in  the  sense  of  Vindication  of  God 
in  the  work  of  creation,  especially  as  to  the  existence  of  sin. 

The  Best  System  means,  not  the  best  conceivable  in  the 
abstract,  but  the  best  in  relation  to  its  materials  and  objects; 
that  which  is  best  on  the  whole,  in  a  world  of  matter,  for  a 
race,  destined  to  have  a  history, — a  race  of  personal,  free,  and 
moral  beings,  capable  of  sin  or  holiness,  and  made  for  fellow- 
ship with  God. 

The  sum  of  what  is  intimated  in  the  Scriptures  on  this 
subject  is  that  God  has  special  regard  to  redemption  in  the 
permission  of  sin,  and  so  has  regard  to  the  special  manifesta- 
tion of  his  own  attributes:  Rom.  xi.  32,  33;  Acts  xvii.  30,  31; 
Eph.  iv.  13 ;  2  Cor.  iii.  18 ;  1  John  iii.  2 ;  especially  the  argument 
of  Paul,  Rom.  v.  12-21. 

The  problem  is,  to  reconcile  the  existence  of  sin  with  the 
divine  character,  or,  in  other  words,  to  reconcile  the  existence 
of  a  system  in  which  sin  is,  with  the  position  that  it  is  from  the 
hand  of  an  omnipotent,  wise  and  holy  author.  The  fact  of  sin 
is  conceded.  Those  who  believe  that  God  is  holy,  wise,  and  om- 
nipotent, of  course  believe  that  the  reconciliation  may  be  made 
even  though  they  cannot  effect  it.  The  existence  of  sin  being 
conceded,  and  the  belief  in  a  holy,  wise,  and  omnipotent  God 
being  taken  for  granted,  the  different  theories  are  the  attempts 
to  account  for  sin.  We  come  here  upon  the  old  dilemma  which 
was  put  even  in  pagan  times:1  God  either  wishes  to  take  away 

1  The  argument  of  Epicurus  as  given  by  Lactantius,  "De  Ira  Dei,"  xiii. : 
"Deus  aut  vult  tollere  mala  et  non  potest;  aut  potest  et  non  vult;  aut  neque  vult 
neque  potest.  Si  vult  et  non  potest,  imbecillis  est;  quod  in  Deuin  non  cadit.  Si 
potest  et  non  vult,  invidus;  quod  seque  alienum  a  Deo.  Si  neque  vult  neque 
potest,  et  invidus  et  imbecillis  est;  ideo,  neque  Deus.  Si  et  vult  et  potest, quod 
solum  Deo  convenit,  unde  sunt  mala?  aut  cur  ilia  non  tollit?" 

The  dilemma  is  here  canied  further  than  is  necessary.  It  is  sufficient  to  say: 
either  will  and  cannot,  so  denying  omnipotence,  or  can  and  will  not,  denying 
benevolence* 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  147 

evil  and  cannot,  or  He  can  and  will  not.  In  the  one  case  He 
lacks  omnipotence,  in  the  other  benevolence.  There  are  two 
main  theories  in  the  Theodicy  corresponding  to  the  parts  of  the 
dilemma:  It  is  said  on  the  one  side,  It  is  not  against  omnip- 
otence to  allow  sin,  because  sin  could  not  be  prevented  in  a  moral 
system;  on  the  other  side  it  is  said,  It  is  not  against  benevolence 
to  admit  sin,  because  sin  is  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good. 

§  1.  Is  Sin  the  necessary  Means  of  the  greatest  Good  ? 

Is  it  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  moral  evil  to  affirm  this  ? 
Does  that  reconcile  the  existence  of  sin  with  the  divine  char- 
acter, so  that  God  is  still  seen  to  be  benevolent,  because  sin  is 
the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good? 

There  are  two  chief  subdivisions  of  this  theory:  I.  The  phil- 
osophical or  metaphysical ;  II.  The  theological  or  orthodox. 

I. — The  philosophical  form  of  the  theory.  This  has  been 
stated  and  considered  under  Part  L,  Book  i.,  §  7,  p.  40. 

II. — The  theological  form  of  the  theory.  This  was  found 
chiefly  among  the  New  England  divines  of  the  strictest  effi- 
ciency school,  Hopkins,  West,  etc.  It  affirms  that  sin  is  an  in 
herent  evil,  yet  is  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good;  in  the 
sense,  not  that  sin  is  a  good  or  the  direct  means  of  good,  but 
that  the  highest  good,  such  as  the  complete  manifestation  of  the 
divine  perfections,  cannot  be  reached  except  by  overruling  sin. 

Is  it  a  solution  of  the  problem  to  say,  that  sin  is  a  necessary 
means  of  the  greatest  good  ?  To  say  the  least,  the  phraseology 
is  objectionable.  The  only  real  scheme  of  this  sort  is  the  panthe- 
istic, that  sin,  from  the  nature  of  the  finite,  is  a  necessary  stage 
in  progress. 

1.  The  theory  is  liable  to  the  objection  that  it  seems  to  im- 
pose a  necessity  on  God  to  produce  sin,  in  a  moral  system ;  since, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  He  could  not  produce  the  best  system 
without  sin.     Consequently  there  is  a  necessity  for  the  existence 
of  sin,  even  to  God.     So  that  thus  the  scheme  is  carried  over 
into  the  scheme  of  necessity. 

2.  If  the  sense  of  "  the  greatest  good "  be  happiness,  then 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  sin,  which  is  and  produces  wretched- 


148  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ness,  is  necessary  to  the  highest  happiness;  for  just  so  far  as 
sin  exists,  it  is  so  much  taken  from  the  sum  of  happiness. 

3.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  define  the  greatest  good  as  holi- 
ness, the  same  difficulty  remains.    Sin  is  the  opposite  of  holiness, 
and  if  so,  how  can  it  be  the  necessary  means  of  holiness  V     Just 
so  far  as  it  exists,  there  is  a  deficiency  of  holiness  in  the  universe. 
We  might  as  well  say,  Darkness  is  the  necessary  means  of  light, 
whereas  just  so  far  as  there  is  darkness,  there  is  a  want  of  light. 

4.  If  the  greatest  good  be  defined  as  the  declarative  glory  of 
the  divine  perfections,  then  the  theory  is,  that  sin  is  necessary 
to  the  fullest  illustration  of  these.     To  this  there  are  objections : 

•  (a.)  It  is  difficult  to  see  why,  taking  the  divine  attributes 
separately,  the  divine  wisdom,  love,  holiness,  may  not  have  been 
perfectly  manifested  without  sin.  Why  could  we  not  have  had, 
e.  (/.,  a  perfect  manifestation  of  the  divine  wisdom,  without  sin? 

(6.)  In  respect  to  the  Godhead  itself,  the  Trinity  and  the  In- 
carnation of  God,  why  might- there  not  have  been  a  manifestation 
of  God  in  his  triune  being  or  an  incarnation,  without  sin  ?  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  Incarnation  was  connected  with  sin,  but  we 
do  not  see  that  it  was  necessarily  so. 

(c.)  The  only  difference  in  the  manifestation  of  divine  attri- 
butes which  sin  has  occasioned,  that  can  be  conceived  or  stated, 
is  in  respect  to  two  points:  Without  sin  the  divine  benevolence 
in  redemption  could  not  have  been  manifested,  nor  could  the 
divine  holiness  in  punishing.  Then  this  is  the  theory:  Sin  is 
the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good,  because  without  sin 
God  could  not  redeem  or  punish.  This  is  what  the  theory  must 
logically  come  to.  It  is  not  all  the  divine  attributes  which  are 
here  supposed  to  be  fully  exhibited,  but  only  those  which  are 
concerned  in  redemption  and  in  the  punishment  of  sin.  In  re- 
spect to  this:  (1)  As  to  punishment.  If  we  say,  sin  is  the 
necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good,  because  God  could  not 
otherwise  manifest  his  glory  in  punishing,  that  is  to  make  the 
punishment  an  end  and  object  for  which  God  acts  as  ultimate, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  could  not  be  the  case.  In  consistency 
with  his  attributes,  He  could  not  bring  into  being  persons  with 
the  object  of  punishing  them.  (2)  As  to  redemption.  If  it  be 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  149 

said  that  sin  is  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good,  because 
without  it  there  could  not  be  Redemption,  and  in  Redemption 
God's  greatest  grace  is  seen,  this  is  to  assume  that  Redemption 
is  the  highest  good,  whereas  it  is  not:  it  is  the  highest  good  for 
sinners,  but  holiness  is  the  highest  good  absolutely.  Redemp 
tion  is  not  ultimate;  it  is  in  order  to  holiness.  The  system  of 
the  Gospel  is  a  method.  We  cannot  then  meet  the  real  question  in 
the  Theodicy,  from  this  point:  we  cannot,  i.  e.,  say  that  the  simple 
object  of  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  glory  in  redemption  is 
sufficient,  alone,  to  justify  God  in  introducing  sin  and  misery, — 
though,  being  introduced  for  other  reasons  or  grounds,  they  do 
serve  to  illustrate  the  divine  glory  in  redemption.  Certainly,  so 
far  as  the  present  system  of  the  world  is  concerned,  we  may  say, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  though  not  of  moral  necessity,  that  in  the 
system  of  Redemption  we  have  the  highest  glory  of  God  re- 
vealed. As  far  as  this  scheme  is  concerned,  then,  the  arguments 
to  prove  that  sin  is  strictly  necessary  to  the  greatest  good,  are 
insufficient,  do  not  reach  to  the  point.  All  the  scheme  gives  us 
is,  the  fact,  but  not  the  fact  as  a  necessity. 

§  2.  Does  the  Nature  of  Free-Agency  account  for  Sin  ? 

Is  it  a  solution  of  the  problem  to  say,  that  from  the  nature  of 
free-agency  God  could  not  prevent  all  sin  in  a  moral  system  ? 

In  New  England  theology  this  position  was  taken  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  divine-efficiency  or  necessary-mearis-of-the-greatest- 
good  scheme.  The  position  is  most  precisely  given  in  Dr.  N. 
W.  Taylor's  Lectures  on  Moral  Gov.,  ii.  309:  "  What,  then,  is  the 
impossibility  of  God's  preventing  all  sin  in  moral  beings,  which 
it  is  now  supposed  may  exist?  I  answer,  It  is  an  impossibility, 
the  supposition  of  which  involves  a  contradiction  in  the  nature  of 
the  case.  It  is  the  impossibility  of  God's  preventing  moral  beings 
from  sinning,  by  anything  which  He  can  do,  when  beings  who 
can  sin  in  despite  of  God  do  in  this  respect  what  they  can  do." ' 
Yet  he  says,  ii.  340:  "[We  do]  not  affirm  that  God  could  not 

i  Of.  also,  Lects.  on  Moral  Gov.,  i.  321-2;  ii.  366;  notice  that  nevertheless  he 
argues,  ii.  313-15,  "  that  the  moral  acts  of  men  and  of  God  may  be  certain  ";  ii. 
342;  ii.  357.  In  i.  309,  it  is  said  that  "  the  power  of  the  creature  to  sin  is  superioi 
to  God's  power." 


150  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

prevent  ail  sin  in  a  moral  system ;  but  simply  that  its  prevention 
in  such  a  system  may  be  impossible  to  Him." l — The  position  at 
the  root  of  this  scheme  is,  that  a  free  agent  is  a  being  who  can 
arid  may  sin  at  any  rate,  in  spite  of  all  conceivable  or  possible 
agency,  even  of  God.  Choice  is  essentially  the  power  to  the 
contrary,  and  the  power  to  the  contrary  always  involves  a  pos- 
sibility of  a  different  choice  and  possibility  of  sin,  and  even  om- 
nipotence cannot  control  it.2 — Now,  is  this  position  a  vindication 
of  the  divine  government  in  respect  to  sin  ?  Does  it  give  us  ft 
sufficient  reason  and  account  of  the  present  system  ? 

fiemarks  : 

1.  This  theory  at  the  utmost  gives  us  only  the  possibility  of 
sin,  not  its  certainty,  not  its  actuality.  God  in  making  a  free 
agent,  gave  him  power  to  the  contrary,  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  sin.  The  theory  accounts  for  the  possibility,  not  for  the  fact, 
of  sin. 

1  This  is  an  important  point  in  the  theory.     So  Leibnitz,  Theod.,  p.  158,  says; 
"  Bayle  demands  too  much:  he  would  have  us  shew  how  evil  is  bound  up  with  the 
best  possible  plan  of  the  creation,  which  would  be  a  perfect  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon:  but  this  we  do  not  undertake  to  give,  nor  are  we  obliged  to  do  so: 
it  would  be  impossible  in  the  present  state;  it  is  enough  that  it  may  be  true,  it  may 
be  inevitable,  it  may  be  that  particular  evils  are  bound  up  with  what  is  best  in 
general.     This  is  sufficient  to  answer  objections,  but  not  for  a  comprehension  of 
the  thing." 

Dr.  Taylor  wishes  to  throw  the  burden  of  proof  on  his  opponents.  He  does 
not  say,  that  God  could  not  prevent  all  sin  in  a  moral  system,  but,  it  cannot  be 
proved  that  He  could.  God  can  exclude  sin  from  a  mora!  system,  but  perhaps 
not  from  the  best,  not  from  all.  The  sin  and  punishment  of  the  fallen  angels  may 
be  the  means,  the  necessary  means  of  preserving  the  rest:  so  of  man:  so  that  the 
fact  of  the  existence  of  sin  in  some  may  be  the  reason  why,  in  the  actually  holy, 
God  keeps  sin  out. — But  where  does  the  burden  of  proof  lie  ?  It  is  proved  that 
God  is  omnipotent,  that  He  can  do  all  that  can  be  done.  The  presumption,  then 
is,  that  He  can  exclude  sin,  and  that  He  has  not  allowed  it  because  He  lacked 
power,  but  for  other  reasons.  This  presumption  is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that 
He  has  excluded  it  from  one  system,  and  that  He  can  and  will  keep  saints  to  the 
end.  It  is  for  the  negative  then  to  show  that  such  is  the  nature  of  a  moral  system 
that  God  cannot  prevent  sin  in  it.  The  affirmative  might  go  one  step  further  and 
say,  that  the  nature  of  moral  agency  is  such  that  God  can  prevent  sin  in  a  moral 
system,  for  He  does  and  will  in  some.  And  since  moral  powers  are  the  same  in 
all,  He  can  in  all;  and  the  reason  why  He  does  not  is  not  that  He  cannot,  out  is 
something  else. 

2  Compare  Whately's  Bampton  Lectures  for  1822,  App.  II.,  against  Arch. 
King,  who  says,  "  the  best  system  is  one  of  free  agents,  liable  to  wrong"    There 
is  a  fallacy,  says  W.,  in  the  use  of  "  liable  to  sin."    It  means  only,  "  in  his  power 
and  in  that  sense  possible,  for  him  to  sin  "  ;  does  not  mean,  "  may  be  expected  tc 
sin  ":  this  begs  the  question. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  151 

2.  On  this  basis,  sin  could  never  be  certain  in  the  system, 
and  therefore  it  could  never  be  provided  for  by  any  eternal  pur* 
pose  or  plan.     It  might  be  or  might  not  be.     The  plan  of  God 
in  respect  to  it  must  always  be  a  plan  of  possibilities  and  not 
certainties;   because  while  it  is  possible  for  a  creature  to  sin,  il 
is  equally  possible  that  he  might  not  sin,  and  therefore  all  the 
future  there  could  be  to  God  would  be  one  of  bare  possibility 
and  not  certainty.1     The   creature  might  sin,  though  omnipo- 
tence should  try  to  prevent  it;  he  might  be  holy,  notwithstand- 
ing all  finite  inducement  to  the  contrary.     The  matter  would  be 
left  in  equilibria. — So,  of  other  divine  attributes.     God  could  not, 
if  his  attributes  are  such  as  we  have  proved,  bring  such  a  sys- 
tem of  uncertainties  into  being.     The  theory  regards  the  finite 
will  as  an  absolute  contingency,  in  respect  to  which  nothing 
can  be  certainly  foreseen. 

3.  This  theory  derogates  also  from  the  divine  omnipotence. 
It  puts  a  limit  in  the  creature  to  omnipotence.     God  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  Jias  exercised  his  omnipotence  in  keeping  holy  angels 
from  sinning,  and  He  has  promised  to  keep  renewed  men  in 
holiness  and  to  secure  their  final  sanctification. 

4.  An  attempt  is  sometimes  made  to  meet  these  difficulties 
by  another  form  of  statement,  viz.,  "  that  sin  is  necessarily  in- 
cidental to  the  best  system."     This  form  of  statement  does  not 
help  the  matter.     It  is  true,  as  all  will  concede,  that  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  sin  is  incidental  to  the  best  system,  but  what  the 
word  "  necessarily "  means  in  connection  with  the  term  "  inci- 
dental," is  difficult  to  decide.     Of  course  the  meaning  is  not  that 
sin  is  a  necessary  incident  in  the  best  system,  and  then  the 
only  necessity  which  the  phrase  attempts  to  keep  in  view  must 
be  that  supposed  to  inhere  in  the  nature  of  free  agency.     And 
here,  as  we  have  seen,  we  have  mere  possibility,  not  necessity. 
" Necessarily  incidental"  can  amount  only  to  this:  that  sin  is 
necessarily  possible,  and  that  really  means  (unless  there  be  cori- 
fusioii  of  terms)  nothing  more  than  possible;  so  that  the  word 

1  See  Meth.  Quarterly,  1860-1  and  Jan.  1862:  "God  foreseeing  how  each  and 
every  possible  free  agent  in  any  possible  case  will  freely  act,  so  places  all  free 
agents  in  existence,  and  so  adjusts  his  own  course  as  that  from  their  free,  unne- 
cessitated,  nndecreed  actions  He  may  educe  the  best  possible  result." 


152  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

"  necessarily  "  serves  only  to  make  it  more  difficult  to  understand 
the  theory.1 

5.  Even  if  the  theory  could  be  freed  from  its  difficulties  in 
relation  to  omnipotence,  it  after  all  would  not  solve  the  problem 
before  us.     The  question  is,  Why  did  God  choose  a  system  in 
which  it  was  certain  that  sin  would  exist?     It  is  no  answer  to 
say,  God  chose  it  because  it  must  be  a  system  of  free  agents, 
about  whom  it  was  wholly  uncertain  whether  they  would  sin  or 
not.     The  only  object  of  a  theory  would  be  to  give  a  reason  why 
God  chose  a  system  in  which  sin  was  certain  to  be,  while  this 
only  states  why  He  chose  a  system  in  which  sin  might  possibly  be. 

6.  The  theory  is  still  further  no  answer  to  the  real  question, 
which  is  this:  Why  is  the  present  system  the  best  system?     All 
that  the  answer  amounts  to  is,  that  the  best  system  is  one  in 
which  there  are  beings  who  have  the  power  of  choice.     But 
their  having  the  power  of  choice  is  not  what  maJce-s  the  system 
best;  it  is  simply  an  incident,  a  sine  qua  non.     The  bare  power  of 
choice — or  power  of  sinning — is  no  particular  good.     That  which 
constitutes  the  "  good  "  of  the  system  must  be  found  either  in 
happiness  or  in  holiness;  and  the  theory  in  relation  to  either  hap- 
piness or  holiness  would  amount  to  this :  that  the  highest  happi- 
ness or  holiness  could  not  be  insured  without  the  power  of 
choice,  which  everybody  grants ;  but  it  does  not  answer  the  ques- 
tion at  all,  Why  sin  is  in  such  a  system  ? — To  state  the  matter 
in  another  form:  the  only  question  which  can  be  proposed  in 
respect  to  vindicating  the  divine  government,  and  the  point  to 
which  any  theory  that  attempts  to  solve  the  question  must  come, 
is  this:  To  show  why  a  holy  and  benevolent  God  chose  a  system 
in  which  sin  was  to  be  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and  why  the  exist- 
ence of  sin  in  that  system  was  a  condition  of  its  being  the  best 
system.     Understanding  that  to  be  the  question,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  theory  that  sin  is  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest 
good  fairly  undertakes  to  meet  the  question,  though  it  does  not 

The  theory  is  also  sometimes  supposed  to  be  stated  with  a  modification,  thus: 
God's  omnipotence  in  the  case  is  restrained  by  his  view  of  what  it  is  best  or  not 
for  Him  to  do.  He  cannot  as  a  wise  Being  do  what  is  unwise.— But  this  is  a  dif  • 
ferent  theory.  It  puts  the  solution  on  a  very  different  ground.  It  runs  into  the 
first  theory  or  a  modification  of  it. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  153 

answer  it.  But  the  other  theory  does  not  meet  the  question.  It 
merely  says,  that  in  the  best  system  free  agency  involves  the 
possibility  of  sin,  and  that  there  cannot  be  a  moral  system  with- 
out free  agents. 

The  theory  thus  leaves  the  question  and  problem  wholly 
undecided.  No  relief  can  be  found  in  a  scheme  which  limits 
divine  omnipotence. 

As  far  as  we  feel  constrained  to  make  a  dilemma,  we  seem 
to  be  compelled  to  say:  God  could  exclude  sin  but  would  not. 
"Could"  asserts  the  divine  omnipotence  as  not  limited  by,  but 
extending  over,  moral  beings  and  systems;  "would  not"  of  course 
does  not  mean  that  God  ever  approves  sin  from  any  point  of 
view,  but  simply  that  He  allows  it  for  some  good  and  sufficient 
reason  which  we  may  or  may  not  be  able  to  state. 

§  3.    We  cannot  state  all  the  Reasons  for  the  Permission  of  Sin. 

The  true  position  is,  that  we  do  not  know  the  ultimate  or 
metaphysical  reason  why  God  allows  sin  to  exist,  and  so  cannot 
give  a  theoretical  solution  of  the  problem  before  us,  while  yet 
the  Christian  system  gives  a  sufficient  practical  solution,  so  that 
they  are  without  excuse  who  reject  the  redemption  offered  in 
Christ. 

The  two  preceding  theories  attempt  demonstrative  solutions, 
they  undertake  to  give  the  ultimate  reason  for  the  existence  of 
sin — and  fail. 

In  saying  that  we  cannot  give  the  final  reason  in  the  case, 
it  is  not  meant  that  we  cannot  give  some  important  reasons,  in 
certain  aspects  and  relations  of  the  matter,  but  only  that  we  do 
not  know  the  ultimate  reason  in  the  divine  mind,  or  the  reason 
which  is  the  complete  vindication  of  Deity. 

The  preceding  theories  may  afford  a  measure  of  help  in 
meeting  difficulties  and  objections,  and  clearing  the  subject  in 
certain  relations. 

1.  The  state  of  the  question.  We  prove  that  God  is  a  holy, 
wise,  omnipotent,  and  benevolent  Being,  on  independent  grounds 
and  with  certain  evidence.  The  proof  as  far- as  we  go  is  suf- 
ficient. Then,  objection  is  made  to  the  proof  for  this  one  rea- 


154  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

son:  the  existence  of  moral  evil  or  sin,  with  its  consequences 
(The  existence  of  natural  evils,  and  of  suffering  as  the  just 
desert  of  sin,  can  be  left  out  of  account  here,  as  the  pressure 
of  the  problem  is  not  on  these  grounds.)  That  objection  is 
supposed  to  be  sufficient  to  undermine  the  whole  sum  of  the 
evidence  derived  from  other  sources,  that  God  is  omnipotent, 
wise,  holy,  and  good.  Then  the  state  of  the  question  is  this. 
Is  it  a  valid  and  sufficient  objection  to  the  proof  that  we  have 
of  the  divine' wisdom  and  benevolence,  that  sin  should  exist 
in  the  world?  Or  although  sin  exists,  may  we  still  hold  fast 
to  that  proof?  In  meeting  this  question,  there  are  two  classes 
to  be  argued  with,  on  different  grounds: — infidels,  with  whom 
the  whole  argument  from  natural  theology  is  to  be  urged, 
with  the  proofs  given  there  of  the  divine  wisdom  and  love; 
and  believers  in  God,  with  whom  the  question  comes  as  to 
the  grounds  on  which  we  can  reconcile  the  two  positions. 

2.  Points  on  which  the  parties  in  dispute  are  agreed,  as 
the  question  has  been  discussed  in  this  country :  (a)  That  the 
actual  system  is  the  best  system  on  the  whole,  for  some  reason 
or  other;  (6)  That  sin  is  in  it;  (c)  That  sin  in  its  nature  is  evil 
and  only  evil,  and  hence  it  cannot  be  in  the  system  for  its 
own  sake;-  God  did  not  put  it  in  the  system  because  it  was 
a  good  or  the  direct  means  of  good;   (d)  That   it  is  in  the 
system   as   the   act   and   guilt   of  the   creature.     With   agree- 
ment on  these   points,  the  differences   come   out   in   the   two 
theories  already  considered. 

3.  Some  reasons  why  this  may  be  the  best  system,  though 
sin  is  in  it.     There  is  a  difficulty  about  the  phrase,  "  best  sys- 
tem."    Defining  it  that  no  better  system  can  possibly  be  con- 
ceived, involves   us   at  once  in  a  difficulty;   because  we  can 
imagine  a  system  in  which  there  should  be  no  sin,  and  that 
would  be  better  than  the  system  in  which  we  now  are.     But 
the  best  system  is  defined  by  Leibnitz  as  the  system  which 
answers  the  great  end  the  best;  we  mean  by  the  phrase,  not  one 
that  we  could  not  conceive  to  be  better,  but  the  system  which  an- 
swers  best,  or  as  well  as  any  system  we  could  conceive,  the  greal 
end:  the  manifestation  of  God  and  the  good  of  the  creature. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  155 

Without  pretending  to  give  the  ultimate  grounds  or  reasons, 
the  divine  government  may  be  vindicated  on  the  following 
grounds,  which  give  points  of  relief  and  rebut  objections  (as 
that  God  is  not  both  omnipotent  and  benevolent,  if  He  allows 
sin,  etc.),  in  connection  with  the  Incarnation,  the  Atonement, 
the  Redemptive  system. 

(a.)  The  divine  benevolence,  which  we  have  taken  as  the 
highest  divine  attribute,  is  not  a  mere  and  ultimate  regard 
to  happiness,  but  to  holiness.  The  divine  benevolence  has 
for  its  main  object  to  secure  the  supremacy  of  holiness  in  God's 
moral  system.  That  must  be  the  great  object  to  which  God 
looks:  a  moral  system  in  which  holiness  shall  be  supreme, 
—not  a  moral  system  in  which  holiness  shall  be  implanted 
in  every  creature,  but  in  which  holiness  shall  be  triumphant. 

(6.)  Such  a  moral  system  can  only  exist  with  and  by  free 
agents.  It  is  inconceivable  that  there  could  be  holy  beings 
without  freedom,  and  in  that  freedom  there  is  of  course  given 
the  possibility  of  sin  as  well  as  of  holiness.  This  does  not 
make  sin  certain  but  possible.  The  possibility  is  not  a  ne- 
cessity, and  if  sin  ever  becomes  actual,  it  will  be  through  a 
free  act  for  which  the  actor  is  responsible. 

(c.)  Now,  having  got  a  system  in  which  holiness  is  to  be 
the  end,  and  a  system  of  free  agency  in  whose  free  agents 
there  was  a  possibility  of  sinning,  we  advance  to  the  state- 
ment that  God  might  allow  the  possibility  of  sin  to  become 
actual,  for  two  main  reasons.  For  two  reasons,  God  as  a 
benevolent  Being  having  ultimate  regard  to  holiness,  might 
permit  the  creature  to  sin.  (1)  From  the  consideration  that 
if  God  should  prevent  sin  by  omnipotence  or  exclude  it  wholly, 
this  might  diminish  the  capabilities  of  holiness  (and  of  course 
of  happiness  also)  in  the  system.  He  could  do  it,  because 
omnipotence  can  do  all  that  can  be  done,  and  it  could  control 
a  free  agent.  But  if  God  should  exercise  his  omnipotence 
in  that  way  throughout  the  whole  creation,  it  might  require 
^ncli  an  exercise  of  omnipotence  as  would  diminish  the  capa- 
bilities of  holiness  and  happiness.  (2)  From  tht  consideration 
that  the  system  of  which  sin  is  a  part  allows  a  special  mani 


156  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

festation  of  the  divine  attribute  of  benevolence  or  love,  in 
Redemption.  We  repeat  that  these  reasons  are  suggested,  not 
as  solving  the  problem  ultimately,  but  as  showing  that  God 
in  his  omnipotence  might,  in  consistency  with  his  benevolence, 
still  permit  the  existence  of  sin. 

(d)  The  reasons  why  God  may  have  permitted  sin  may  also 
be  reasons  for  his  not  suppressing  it  finally  in  the  system,  i.  e., 
for  allowing  some  to  go  to  eternal  condemnation. 

(e.)  As  Chalmers  says,  for  aught  we  know,  it  may  be  better 
for  each  individual  to  be  in  a  system  where  there  is  a  common 
sin  and  a  common  redemption,  than  for  each  to  be  in  a  system 
where  he  might  sin  and  where  there  was  no  redemption  pro- 
vided.— As  far  as  the  whole  system  of  the  world  is  concerned,  it 
seems  plain  that  the  vindication  of  the  divine  government  is  ulti- 
mately in  the  scheme  of  Redemption.  God  chose  the  system,  as 
far  as  his  own  agency  was  concerned,  for  the  sake  of  the  Redemp- 
tion in  it,  and  not  because  He  was  obliged  to  take  it  with  its  pos- 
sibilities of  evil  for  the  sake  of  free  agency.  If  there  had  not  been 
a  Redemption,  there  would  not  have  been  a  race  of  sinners,  proba- 
bly. God  would  have  cut  oft'  the  race  at  the  root,  if  it  had  not 
been  in  his  purpose  to  provide  a  scheme  of  Redemption,  and  a 
scheme  co-extensive  in  its  provisions  with  the  extent  of  the 
apostasy.  So  far  as  God's  own  motive  or  agency  was  con- 
cerned, a  general  Redemption  set  over  against  a  general  rain 
was  the  reason  why  he  allowed  sin  to  go  on,  a  Redemption 
which  will  ultimately  no  doubt  embrace  by  far  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  race. 

(/.)  God  is  more  than  benevolent,  He  is  gracious.  Man  is 
ultimately  condemned  for  rejecting  grace.  (As  to  those  who 
know  not  the  gospel,  we  need  not  fear  to  assert  that  God  will 
deal  with  them,  too,  benevolently  as  well  as  justly.) 

Summary.  Concluding  Statement:  God  might,  by  omnipo- 
tence, have  excluded  sin;  yet  we  must  say:  for  wise  and  good 
reasons,  some  of  which  we  can  see,  others  not,  He  chose  not  to 
exert  his  omnipotence  in  the  way  of  its  suppression. 

For  aught  that  appears,  the  present  system  answers  its  end, 
t.  e.,  the  manifestation  of  the  declarative  glory  of  God  and  the 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  157 

ensuring  the  triumph  of  holiness  through  free  agents,  as  com- 
pletely as  any  can,  in  which  both  these  elements  are  to  be 
conjoined.  Both  of  them  are  to  be  taken  into  account  in 
estimating  the  system. 

The  full  Theodicy  could  be  known  only  by  knowing  the 
universe;  for  evil  began  in  angelic  natures,  and  has  its  full  issuo 
only  in  eternity.  This  world  gives  us  but  a  part;  the  Theodicy 
is  to  be  framed  with  reserves  and  suspense  .of  judgment  as  to  what, 
is  ultimate ;  but  so  far  as  we  do  frame  it,  we  are  to  avoid  natu- 
ralistic grounds,  and  put  ourselves  on  the  basis  of  the  Redemptive 
scheme.  The  problem  of  evil  brings  us  and  leaves  us  face  to 
face  with  the  offer  of  Redemption,  and  that  is  the  most  we  can 
do  with  it:  to  make  opposers  concede  that  the  existence  of  sin 
is  explained  as  far  as  may  be  in  the  Redemption,  and  then  ask 
them  themselves  to  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  gracious. 
The  practical  solution  of  the  problem  is  and  ever  must  be  found 
in  the  personal  acceptance  of  the  offers  of  grace. 

NOTE. — Some  additional  statements  not  incorporated  by  the 
author  in  his  lectures. 

I. — Attempts  to  prove  a  priori  the  metaphysical  necessity  of 
sin  in  the  best  system  fail,  if  sin  be  held  to  be  sin.  The  only 
consistent  statement  here  is  the  pantheistic:  sin  is  a  stage  of 
development. 

II. — The  proof  from  free  will,  motives,  etc.,  fails  in  showing 
more  than  liability,  possibility.  It  does  not  show  how  God  could 
choose  a  system  involving  the  actuality  of  sin. 

III. — The  position,  This  is  the  best  system — sin  is  in  it — 
therefore,  etc.,  is  analysis  and  not  proof. 

IV. — Sin  the  necessary  means  of  the  greatest  good,  fails  too. 

V. — Yet  we  have  enough  to  answer  objections  and  difficul- 
ties so  as  to  leave  us  face  to  face  with  the  system  of  Redemp- 
tion. This  is  all  that  can  be  rationally  asked  in  a  Christian 
Theodicy. 

VI. — We  should  remember  that  the  moral  system  of  which 
we  are  a  part,  embraces  the  angelic  as  well  as  the  Adamic 
world.  Sin  is  far  reaching;  it  reaches  back  into  the  past 


158  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

eternity  and  forward  into  the  future.  Hence  the  more  need 
of  caution  the  less  the  probability  that  we  can  see  or  know 
the  whole.1 

VII. — We  should  recollect,  also,  that  as  far  as  this  world  is 
concerned,  it  is  a  system,  not  of  individuals,  but  for  a  race;  with 
common  characteristics,  and  a  moral  government  for  the  whole 
as  well  as  for  each  individual.  In  such  a  system  there  may  be 
elements  which  would  not  be  found  in  one  of  pure  individualism. 
E.  #.,  It  might  be  better  for  each  individual  to  be  in  a  system 
with  sin  for  all  and  a  common  redemption,  than  in  one  where 
each  came  into  the  world  to  stand  or  fall  for  himself  alone. 
More  might  be  saved,  on  the  whole,  by  such  a  system  than  by 
one  of  individual  action  and  penalty.  God  would  make  a  race; 
individuals  to  be  generated;  there  must  then  be  body  and  soul; 
this  gave  occasion  for  sin — and  also  for  Redemption.  The  fact 
of  Redemption  is  connected  uniformly,  in  the  Bible,  with  Incar- 
nation. No  redemption  for  angels  is  intimated. 

VIII. — Recollect  also,  the  necessary  constituents  of  a  moral 
system.  The  best  system  is  that  which  secures  the  highest  glory 
of  God,  through  and  by  the  acts  of  free  moral  agents.  There 
are  two  elements  in  it:  the  declarative  glory  of  the  divine  per- 
fections, and  the  agency  of  the  creature :  or,  the  supremacy  of 
holiness  as  the  end,  and  the  freedom  of  the  creature  in  relation 
to  that  end.  Such  a  system  of  course  implies  that  men  are  free 
moral  agents;  yet  also,  that  God  through  and  by  their  free  agency 
will  secure  the  end  of  his  system. 

IX. — 1.  The  Ideal:  God — a  perfect  world — man,  free,  holy — 
collection  of  individuals  like  angels — immortal -bliss  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  holy  law  for  each. 

2.  The  Actual:  God — a  sinful  world — man  in  bondage  to  sin 
— common  ruin — violated  law — uncertain  or  dismal  future. 

1  As  to  the  fall  of  Angels,  see  Birks,  Difficulties  of  Belief,  ch.  v.  (1)  A  moral  sys- 
tem was  first  set  forth  in  creation,  in  the  simplest  way;  in  angelic  hosts  and  orders; 
individuals;  all  favorable  to  stability.  (2)  The  Fall,  through  pride,  before  the  Ad- 
amic.  (3)  The  system  passing  over  to  a  mixed  one:  a  new  trial,  in  the  human  race; 
sinful  angels  still  connected  with  it.  (Angels  not  at  once  cast  down  to  the  lowest 
hell,  as  is  inferred  from  2  Pet.  ii.  4;  Jude  6,  7.  This  last  refers  [probably  to<t 
the  first]  to  the  sin  of  angels  with  the  race,  a  second  apostasy.)  "A  later  fall  of 
Satan  in  the  Garden,  in  connection  with  the  Adainic." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  159 

3.  The  Union  of  the  Two :  Christianity — Man  a  race — with 
common  sinfulness:  Christ  a  Redeemer — common  provision  of 
Redemption — the  world  a  probation — eternity  unveiled. 

The  difficulties  of  natural  religion  solved  by  the  Christian 
religion. 

X. — Consider  the  attitude  of  God  in  respect  to  sin  and  its 
consequences.  The  general  maxim  here:  "Deus  concurrit  ad 
materiale,  non  ad  formale  actionis  liberse."  God  is  to  overrule, 
bound,  control  sin.  God  could  not  prevent  sin,  from  regard  to 
his  plan ;  could,  per  se.  Consider  that  metaphysical  evil  is  not 
really  such;  in  gradation  there  is  no  real  evil.  Misery  and 
death  are  in  the  world  for  the  sin  of  the  race;  they  are  not  nec- 
essary; are  to  pass  away:  Rom.  viii.  21;  viii.  18—25;  Rev.  vii.  16, 
17;  xxi.  4.  Evil  still  attends  sin:  Rom.  v.  12;  vi.  23.  Evil  serves 
the  glory  of  God:  John  ix.  3;  xi.  4;  Rom.  viii.  28;  James  i.  2-4. 

XI. — Such  a  permission  of  sin  in  this  race  allows  a  peculiar 
manifestation  of  the  divine  love,  in  this  system  of  Redemption, 
where  the  highest  divine  glories  shine.  In  its  results  in  saving, 
it  will  doubtless  reach  far  beyond  our  common  thoughts  and 
ways  of  estimating. — Infants. — Who  knows  what  a  millennial 
period  maybe? — some  conjecture  three  hundred  and  sixty  thou- 
sand years  (year  of  thousands).  We  need  not  fear  to  make  this 
statement  broad  and  strong. 


PART     III. 

CHRISTIAN    ANTHROPOLOGY.      THE    DOCTRINE 
RESPECTING   MAN. 

This  Third  Part  of  the  First  Division  treats  of  man,  in  his 
original  endowments,  his  moral  relations,  and  his  original  moral 
state.  It  differs  from  Psychology  (which  considers  man  in  his 
isolation — a  mind — an  intelligence)  in  taking  the  broadest  and 
highest  view  of  man,  treating  the  whole  doctrine  respecting 
man  in  his  relations  to  God,1  and  as  a  subject  of  God's  moral 
government. 

Under  this  title  we  include  the  discussion  of  the  much-de- 
bated questions  as  to  the  nature  of  moral  agency  and  of  holiness 
and  sin,  which  are  to  be  applied  in  respect  to  all  the  doctrines, 
both  in  Anthropology  (with  Hamartology)  and,  in  the  Third  Di- 
vision, the  Application  of  Kedemption.  We  have  here  to  con- 
sider the  nature  of  free  agency,  of  conscience,  of  true  virtue ;  all 
of  which  go  to  exhibit  the  true  nature  of  God's  moral  government. 

The  general  subject  of  the  prime  constituents  of  human  na- 
ture, or  of  man's  endowments  and  relations  as  a  moral  being, 
can  be  considered  under  these  points  of  view :  I.  What  is  man 
as  a  moral  being?  II.  What  is  the  law  for  which  as  a  moral 
being  he  is  made?  III.  What  is  man's  relation  to  the  law  (syn- 
thesis between  I.  and  II.) — man's  destination  as  a  moral  being  ? — 
In  what  is  conformity  to  this  law  found  ? 2 

'[The  author  sometimes  made  Anthropology  include  the  Doctrine  of  Human 
Nature — I.  in  Itself ;  II.  as  Fallen;  III.  as  capable  nevertheless  of  Eedemption. 
The  first  head  would  treat  of  the  prime  constituents  of  human  nature  and  its  chief 
moral  relations;  the  second,  of  the  condition  into  which  man  as  a  race  has  fallen, 
and  of  the  penalty  and  power  of  sin  in  men  as  individuals;  and  the  third,  of  the 
need  on  man's  part  of  deliverance  from  without  and  above,  and  of  the  poswibility 
of  receiving  deliverance  which  still  survives  in  human  nature.  But  on  the  whole 
the  division  of  the  subject  into  Part  HI.  Anthropology,  and  Part  IV.  Hamartology, 
suits  his  treatment  best.] 

a  [This  is  the  question  of  "  the  nature  of  true  virtue."  The  above  scheme  is  not 
Btrictly  followed,  yet  it  governs  more  than  any  other  in  the  ensuing  discussions.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  161 

CHAPTER  I. 

WHAT    IS   MAN   AS   A   MORAL   BEING? 

in  order  to  know  what  man  is  as  a  moral  being,  we  must 
consider  the  relations  in  which  he  stands,  his  endowments  and 
capacities. 

§  1.   Of  Man  in  his  most  General  Relations. 

(a.)  Man  in  his  relation  to  the  Creator,  which  is  his  highest 
and  chief  relation,  is  finite  and  dependent.  His  fundamental 
relation  is  that  of  a  creature  of  God,  dependent  upon  Him  for 
life  and  breath  and  all  things:  Gen.  i.  26;  Acts  xvii.  28;  Rev. 
iv.  11.  As  a  creature,  man  falls  under  the  general  condition  of 
finite  existence,  limitation  by  space  and  time.  As  a  creature 
of  God  he  is  made  for  God,  having  the  destination  of  glorifying 
God,  so  that  that  is  his  chief  end;  and  in  nothing  that  he  does 
can  he  be  independent  of  the  divine  government,  as  exercised 
in  the  way  o  general  providence,  ordering  all  things  with  om- 
nipotence and  wisdom,  for  the  highest  ends  of  such  a  government. 

(6.)  In  relation  to  the  rest  of  the  material  creation  man  is  the 
crown  and  head  thereof.1  One  aspect  of  the  world  Tie  wed  by 
itself  is,  that  it  was  made  for  man;  it  culminates  and  is  cen- 
tralized in  him.  This  is  foreshadowed  in  the  order  of  creation 
given  in  the  book  of  Genesis:  man  was  made  last  and  to  have 
dominion  over  all.8  It  is  proved  also  by  science,  which  shows 
that  everything  in  the  lower  orders  of  animals  points  to  man.* 
The  order  is :  inorganic ;  organic  with  life — vegetables ;  organic 
with  souls  (in  broad  sense) — animals :  man  has  all  these  elements 
in  his  constitution,  and 

(c.)  He  has  not  only  what  allies  him  with  and  makes  him 
the  recapitulation  of  the  order  of  creation,  but  he  has  also  what 

1  "Man  is  not  an  animal  whose  mind  is  agitated  with  animal  sympathies  and 
passions,  but  a  calm,  deep  sea,  in  which  the  heavens  with  the  sun  and  stars  are 
mirrored  "  (Herder). 

2  Here  religion  and  theology  have  anticipated  science. 

3  Especially  the  investigations  into  the  stages  of  embryo  life. 


162  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

puts  him  above  all  other  natural  beings,  a  spiritual  subsistence. 
He  is  made  up  of  both  matter  and  spirit.  The  two  realms  meet 
in  him.  The  angels  are  spirits  without  bodies,  and  the  lower 
orders  have  a  material  constitution  without  a  rational  soul 
Man  is  the  union  of  both.  This  combination  assigns  him  his 
place  in  the  whole  creation.  The  difference  between  matter  and 
spirit:  (1)  General:  we  cannot  ascribe  the  qualities  of  the  one  to 
the  other;  (2)  Matter  is  defined  by  its  relations  to  space:  spirit, 
not;  (3)  Matter  is  moved  by  foreign  agency:  spirit  is  self-active,1 
is  essentially  free;  (4)  "Spirit  has  its  center  in  itself:  matter, 
not"  (Hegel). 

(d.)  Man  is  not  only  thus  related  to  God  and  to  nature,  but 
each  individual  man  is  also  one  of  a  race:  he  is  an  individual 
example  of  a  race.  What  he  is  as  a  member  of  the  race  is  the 
substratum  of  what  he  is  as  an  individual,  personal  being.  The 
unity  of  the  race  as  a  whole  underlies  the  idea  of  the  individual. 
In  each  individual  the  constituent  elements  of  human  nature  are 
individualized.  The  individual  has  all  the  common  properties, 
relations,  tendencies,  qualities,  attributes — or  whatever  they  may 
be  called — of  the  race  of  which  he  is  a  part  and  an  individual 
copy.  The  unity  and  "  solidarity  "  of  the  race  is  at  the  basis  of 
the  doctrines  of  sin  and  of  redemption.  As  a  whole,  as  well  as 
in  each  individual,  it  is  the  object  of  the  divine  government: 
Gen.  i.  27,  28;  Acts  xvii.  24-26;  Rom.  v.  12.  The  race  is  in  idea 
before  the  individual :  the  whole  is  in  idea  before  the  part :  for 
the  part  has  essential  respect  to  the  whole.2  Hence,  men  can- 
not be  considered  as  isolated  beings.  We  cannot  understand 
the  human  body  except  in  its  relations  to  nature,  which  it  was 
made  to  act  in.  We  cannot  understand  a  human  affection  ex- 
cept as  it  is  related  to  other  beings.  The  very  idea  of  man  is 
that  of  an  individual  being  or  agent  in  such  leading  relations  as 
have  been  named.  His  capacities  and  powers  have  respect  to 
these.  And, 

(e.)  In  all  these  relations  man  is  a  moral  being.     In  them  all 

1  In  a  broad  seiise  we  must  admit  a  spiritual  principle  in  animals:  they  are 
self-active. 

2  Aristotle,  Pol.  1,  2:  "Manifestly  the  state  is  by  nature  before  the  family  an] 
before  each  individual.    For  the  whole  must  needs  be  earlier  than  the  part." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  163 

he  is  to  live  as  a  moral  agent.  He  is  such  a  being,  he  has  such 
a  constitution  that  he  can  and  must  be  in  moral  relations  with 
all,  can  and  must  act  in  a  moral  way,  in  respect  to  all.  As  con- 
sisting of  body  and  soul,  as  related  to  nature,  to  his  fellow- 
beings  and  to  God,  he  is  to  act  morally,  in  accordance  with  a 
moral  law,  for  a  moral  end.  This  is  his  fundamental  destination: 
to  be  morally  at  one  with  himself,  with  nature,  with  other 
rational  beings,  and  with  God. 

And  he  has  such  endowments  that  he  can  do  this.  Man  is 
made  a  moral  being:  having  such  capacities  and  powers,  in  such 
a  state,  that  he  can  and  must  act  in  a  moral  way,  under  a  moral 
law.  And  this  leads  us  to  consider — 

§  2.  What  constitutes  the  Individuality  of  each  Nan  ?  What 
are  the  specific  Characteristics  of  each  Man  as  an  Individual  Person  ? 

The  most  general  statement:  Man  is  a  personal  agent,  hav- 
ing capacities  or  powers  and  tendencies  corresponding  to.  all 
the  relations  in  which  he  is  placed  and  for  which  he  was  made. 

The  order  of  discussion:  I.  Man  as  made  up  of  body  and 
soul;  II.  Personality;  III.  Faculties;  IV.  Tendencies;  V.  Con- 
science. Man  is  primarily  constituted  of  body  and  spirit,  and 
is  thus  connected  with  the  natural  and  spiritual  sphere;  his 
body  has  a  central  principle  of  life,  which  is  not  the  result 
of,  but  the  living  center  of  unity  to,  all  his  organism;  his 
personality  presides  over  and  expresses  itself  in  all  that  he 
does;  he  has  powers  or  faculties;  he  has  tendencies  towards 
the  various  objects  to  which  he  is  related;  and  in  respect  to 
all,  he  has  the  power  of  moral  discernment,  feeling,  and  self- 
determination,  and  of  moral  judgment  upon  himself  and  upon 
all  that  comes  within  the  moral  sphere. 

§  3.   Of  the  union  of  Body  and  Soul  in  Man. 

I. — The  dichotomy  in  man.  Man  is  animal  rationale,  the  cen- 
ter between  matter  and  spirit,  made  up  of  both ;  his  material  por- 
tion we  call  his  body:  his  spiritual  substance,  his  soul.  This 
union  is  the  most  wonderful  and  mysterious  fact  in  our  organic 
frame.  Various  theories  have  been  proposed  to  explain  or  illus- 
trate it.  The  theories  rest  upon  one  of  two  assumptions:  that 


164  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

body  and  soul  are  one  substance  originally,  or  that  there  is  an 
essential  duality  of  matter  and  spirit.  On  the  first  assumption 
we  may  have  (a.)  Materialism,  which  affirms  that  this  primitive 
substance  is  matter  which  takes  the  form  of  spirit;  or  (b.)  Ideal- 
ism, affirming  that  the  primitive  substance  is  spirit  which  be- 
comes objective  to  itself  in  what  is  called  matter.1  The  diffi- 
culty in  either  of  these  cases  is  that  things  so  different  as 
body  and  soul  cannot  be  deduced  the  one  from  the  other. 
We  cannot  bring  one  under  the  other;  we  can  only  super- 
add  the  qualities  of  spirit  to  those  of  matter,  or  the  qual- 
ities of  matter  to  those  of  spirit.  The  second  assumption, 
that  matter  and  spirit  are  dual,  essentially  distinct,  may  be 
carried  to  the  extreme  of  asserting  that  they  are  entirely 
disparate,  giving  rise  to  the  three  chief  theories  as  to 
their  mode  of  acting  upon  each  other,  (a.)  The  union  is  made 
in  the  seneorium:  the  nerves  carry  impressions  thither,  and  then 
the  soul  receives  them.  But  when  we  have  got  to  the  senso- 
rium  and  the  nervous  action  and  the  spirit  awaiting  the 
reception  oi  the  nervous  influence,  we  still  have  to  explain 
the  nature  of  this  union  as  much  as  before;  and  therefore 
some  have  imagined  a  nervous  fluid  intermediate  between 
matter  and  spirit,  which  is  so  vague  that  it  may  be  taken 
to  be  matter  or  spirit,  or  both.2  This  theory  really  materializes 
the  soul,  while  it  leaves  the  problem  unsolved,  and  simply  re- 
moves the  difficulty  to  parts  unknown.  (&.)  The  theory  of 
occasionalism — Cartesian.  This  started  with  the  position  that 
matter  works  by  its  particular  laws,  and  spirit  by  laws  peculiar 
to  itself,  and  that  these  are  so  different  that  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  a  mutual  action.  Then,  to  explain  what  appears  to 
be  the  mutual  action,  it  was  said  that  God,  on  the  occasion 
of  the  action  of  the  one,  produces  by  his  direct  agency  a  cor- 
responding action  in  the  other,  (c.)  The  theory  of  pre-estab- 
lished harmony,  suggested  by  Leibnitz.  This  also  rests  on 
the  assumption  that  there  is  no  direct  interaction  between 

1  To  say,  the  primitive  substance  is  neither  matter  nor  spirit,  as  in  Cud  worth's 
*'  plastic  soul  of  nature,"  etc.,  (so  Morell)  is  to  make  a  union  in  statement  merely, 
not  in  any  definite  conception. 

2  "Physical  influx  "  designates  a  similar  theory. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  165 

the  material  and  spiritual,  but  it  hesitates  to  say  that  God 
produces  the  actions  by  continual  interference;  and  says  in 
distinction  that  He  made  the  soul  and  body  in  a  perfect  cor- 
respondence the  one  with  the  other,  so  that,  e.  g.,  when  a  motion 
took  place  in  the  body  there  should  be  a  motion  in  the  soul, 
not  by  the  direct  act  of  God,  but  by  the  action  of  the  spirit 
it-self,  according  to  a  pre-established  harmony.  These  three 
theories  have  been  illustrated  by  the  instance  of  two  watches 
keeping  the  same  time,  which  might  be  taken  under  three 
points  of  view:  they  keep  time  together,  (1),  because  they  act 
on  each  other;  (2),  because  the  maker  of  the  watches  acts  di- 
rectly upon  both;  (3),  because  both  watches  were  made  so  perfect 
at  the  first  that  they  correspond  in  movement  at  every  point. 

The  simple  facts,  however,  to  which  we  must  come  back  are. 
that  body  and  soul  are  distinct;  that  they  do  interact;  and  that 
the  mode  of  their  interaction  surpasses  human  scrutiny.  We 
must  accept  the  fact  as  ultimate  and  a  mystery.  We  may  say 
that  the  soul  is  prior;  takes  to  itself  a  material  form ;  and  that  in 
this  union  neither  is  understood  without  the  other.1  "The  soul 
is  the  entelechy  of  the  body."  The  whole  body  is  the  seat  of 
the  soul.  Both  soul  and  body  are  in  constant  union  and  mutual 
action.  The  body  is  the  organ  for  the  manifestation  of  the  soul, 
and  the  medium  of  its  communication  with  the  material  world 
and  beings.  The  union  of  body  and  soul  is  through  and  by-- 
not  bare  matter,  but — the  forces  of  matter,  or  through  matter  as 
force.  There  is  force  in  the  action  of  all  the  organism :  mechan- 
ical, chemical,  vital;  there  is  force  also  in  the  soul.  Force  is 
common  to  both  body  and  soul,  and  here,  in  some  way,  is  the 
point  of  union.  The  soul  shapes,  forms  the  body;  and  because 
it  does  this,  it  is  susceptible  to  all  its  motions.  This  does  not 
explain,  so  that  we  can  comprehend,  the  union:  but  it  deter- 
mines the  relations  of  the  body  to  the  soul. 

After  all,  body  and  soul,  while  essentially  distinct,  are  per- 
haps not  so  disparate  as  we  traditionally  imagine. 

i  Compare  The  Theory  of  the  Soul,  by  Rev.  J.  B.  Dalgairns.  He  vindicates, 
against  the  Cartesian  dualism,  the  Aristotelian  view  of  the  soul  as  "entelechy." 
He  says,  "Man  is  one  oomplete  being  made  up  of  body  and  soul,  in  the  sense 
that  the  intellectual  soul  is  by  itself  the  true  and  immediate  form  of  the  body." 


166  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

II. — Does  the  dichotomy  (body  and  soul)  in  man  include  also 
a  trichotomy  (body,  soul,  and  spirit)  ?  Those  who  affirm  that  it 
does,  rely  upon  two  passages  of  Scripture :  1  Thess.  v.  23,  rendering 
this  "May  you  remain,  be  preserved  entire,  in  all  your  parts,  body, 
soul,  and  spirit,  blameless,"  etc. — It  seems  better,  however,  to  un- 
derstand it:  May  you  in  all  your  spheres,  all  your  relations,  be 
blameless:  in  Spirit,  i.  e.,  in  relation  to  the  new  spiritual  life;  in 
soul,  in  all  your  individual  traits;  and  in  body.  The  other  pas- 
sage adduced  is  Heb.  iv.  12;  where  "piercing  to  the  separation, 
or  the  dividing,  of  soul  and  spirit"  is  taken  to  imply  a  difference 
in  substance  between  soul  and  spirit,  or  at  least  a  difference  in 
the  whole  mode  of  existence  and  manifestation. — But  the  pas- 
sage appears  to  refer  not  to  two  distinct  compartments  of  the  spir- 
itual Christian  man,  but  to  two  different  relations:  a  relation  to 
the  whole  spiritual  sphere  and  to  the  natural,  both  of  which  are 
searched  to  the  very  joints  and  marrow  of  them  by  the  Word  of 
God.1 

If  spirit  and  soul  were  two  distinct  substances,  then,  (a.)  death 
could  not  be  described  as  the  giving  up  of  the  soul  (Gen.  xxxv. 
18;  1  Kings  xvii.  21;  Acts  xv.  26,  Cf.  xx.  10,  11),  and  again  as 
the  giving  up  of  the  spirit  (Ps.  xxxi.  5 ;  Lulse  xxiii.  46 ;  Acts  vii.  59 ; 
Cf.  Luke  viii.  55);  (6.)  "  souls"  and  "spirits"  of  the  dead  could  not 
mean  the  same  (1  Pet.  iii.  19;  Heb.  xii.  23;  Rev.  vi.  9;  xx.  4); 
(c.)  we  should  not  find  the  Scriptural  formula  for  man  to  be 
sometimes  "body  and  soul"  (Ps.  Ixxiii.  26;  Matt.  vi.  25;  x.  28), 
and  sometimes  "body  and  spirit"  (Eccl.  xii.  7;  1  Cor.  v.  3,  5). 

§  4.   Of  the  origin  of  Souls  (after  the  Creation  of  ike  first  Soul). 

While  it  is  agreed  that  the  first  members  of  the  human  race 
were  the  immediate  objects  of  the  divine  power,  and  that  their 
souls  were  immediately  created  like  their  bodies,2  on  the  question 
how  the  souls  of  their  descendants  come  into  being  there  are 
three  chief  theories:  Pre-existence,  Creationism,  Traducianism. 

1  The  words,  "  spirit "  and  "  soul "  designate,  the  former,  the  life  as  proceed- 
ing from  God;  the  latter,  the  life  as  that  of  the  individual.  This  is  the  only  gen- 
eral view  that  can  be  carried  out. 

'[With  those  who  do  not  agree  to  this,  the  author's  plan  was  to  conduct  dis- 
cussion under  the  head  of  Apologetics,  "j 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  167 

I. — Pre-existence:  God  created  originally  (on  "the  first  day," 
some  have  said,  some,  on  "  the  sixth,")  all  the  souls  of  the  human 
race  that  ever  should  exist.  (The  view  of  the  Rabbins  was,  that 
these  souls  were  kept  in  a  heavenly  treasury  until  conception 
took  place,  and  that  then  the  soul  was  introduced  into  and  united 
with  the  new  body.)  Some  have  supposed  that  there  is  an 
allusion  to  this  in  John  ix.  2.  If  the  man  did  sin,  of  course  he 
pre-existed,  it  is  said.  The  phrase,  however,  is  colloquial  and 
not  metaphysical.  Ps.  cxxxix.  15  is  also  cited,  but  this  is 
doubtless  an  allusion  to  the  formation  in  the  womb.1 

Plato,  Philo,  Justin  Martyr,  Theodoretus,  Origen,  Synesius, 
Prudentius,  taught  pre-existence ;  some  holding  that  the  souls 
were  in  the  ether  and  came  freely,  the  Church  Fathers  for  the 
most  part  teaching  that  they  were  brought  into  the  body  as  a 
punishment  and  with  the  benevolent  intent  of  giving  them  the 
opportunity  of  redemption.  Against  it  were  Tertullian,  Greg- 
ory of  Nyssa,  Cyril,  Augustine,  Leo  the  Great;  at  a  synod  under 
Justinian  (Mansi,  IX.  396)  it  was  condemned. 

II. — Creationism:  Each  soul  is  created  by  the  divine  power, 
and  united  with  the  foetus,  which  alone  is  propagated.  The 
soul  is  supposed  to  be  created  pure,  and  united  with  a  depraved 
body.  This  view  was  held  by  Hilary,  Pelagius,  Theodoretus, 
Gennadius,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  by  the  Scholastics,  by  Melanch- 
thon,  and  most  of  the  Reformers.  It  has  been  the  view  of  most 
Roman  Catholic  divines,  and  of  many  Calvinists.  Lutheran 
theologians  are  for  the  most  part  against  it,  though  Luther  him- 
self was  not  decided.  Pelagius  used  it  against  the  doctrine  of 
oiiginal  sin,  urging  that  God  would  not  create  a  soul  impure. 
Augustine  was  not  decided.  Against  it  are  usually  cited:  Gen. 
i.  26;  ii.  2;  for  it,  such  passages  as  Heb.  xii.  9,  "  Father  of  spirits." 
The  chief  objections  to  it  are:  (a.)  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  God 
could  create  a  perfectly  pure  spirit,  and  unite  it  with  a  depraved 
organization;  (6.)  It  puts  man  out  of  analogy  with  all  the  other 
living  beings  in  the  world;  in  these  the  entire  vitality  is  allowed 

1  Other  citations  are:  Isa.  xlii.  5;  Job  xii.  10;  1  Pet.  iii.  18.  The  following 
have  been  quoted  to  show  that  the  souls  of  children  are  in  Hades  before  birth:  Job 
i.  21;  Ps.  cxxxix,  14,  15;  Ps.  xxii,  30. 


168  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

to  be  propagated,  including  all  that  goes  to  the  animal  soul,  the 
degree  of  intelligence,  traits,  etc.;  (c.)  It  tends  to  destroy  the 
organic  unity  of  the  race.1 

III. — Traducianism.  (" Tradux,"  the  vine  shoot,  brought  over 
to  become  a  new  branch.)  This  theory,  which  on  the  whole 
has  been  the  most  widely  approved,  accounts  for  the  genesis  of 
souls  from  the  first  pair,  by  the  position  that  the  soul  is  propa- 
gated with  the  body. 

Certain  passages  of  Scripture  are  believed  to  be  most -in  ac- 
cordance with  this  view,  though  they  cannot  be  said  to  be  ab- 
solutely decisive.  Heb.  vii.  10;  Gen.  v.  3, — the  "likeness"  to 
himself  in  which  Adam  begat  a  son  can  scarcely  be  restricted 
to  the  body,  and  if  it  was  also  in  the  soul,  then  that  was  included 
in  the  begetting ;  Ps.  li.  5, — this  certainly  cannot  refer  to  the  body 
alone,  but  to  the  depravity  in  the  soul.  If  the  Psalmist  has  not 
in  view  his  own  sinfulness,  what  could  he  have  had  in  view?  he 
was  not  speaking  of  the  guilt  of  his  mother;  John  iii.  6, — "the 
flesh  "  here  means,  all  the  natural  constitution  of  man,  all  that 
is  not  the  effect  of  a  special  divine  influence;  Rom.  v.  12  seq., 
where  the  reasoning  seems  to  presuppose  transmission  of  the  en- 
tire human  endowment  from  the  first  man;  and  the  general 
Scriptural  mode  of  describing  generation  as  of  the  whole  man: 
"Adam  begat  Seth,"  "Isaac  begat  Jacob:"  it  would  seem  that 
Ihere  is  everywhere  recognition  of  the  fact  that  man  does  not 
beget  mere  animals,  but  persons,  or  at  least  personal  natures. 

Other  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Traducian  view  are:  (a.)  the 
analogy  of  creation  already  referred  to;  (&.)  the  slow  develop- 
ment of  the  powers  of  the  mind  seems  more  in  harmony  with 
this  view  than  with  Creationism;  (c.)  the  traits  of  parents  de- 
scend to  children,  peculiarities  of  intellect,  even  moral  peculiari- 
ties, all  of  which  must  have  their  seat  in  the  soul;  (d.)  the  doc- 
trine of  original  sin  is  best  stated  in  accordance  with  this  vie\*. 

The   chief  objection  to   Traducianism   is   the   philosophical 

1  Lasaulx,  Phil.  d.  Gesch.,  p.  15:  "In  all  human  pro-creation,  it  is  not  the 
individual  man  and  woman  that  generate,  but  the  race  (the  generic)  in  them;  hu- 
manity generates  life:  i.  e.t  in  the  last  instance,  "the  eternally  pro-creative  na- 
ture," springing  from  "the  original  and  universal  prototype,"  and  "the  divine 
creative  power  dwelling  in  the  protoplast/. "  So  Plato,  De  Leg. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  169 

difficulty  raised  in  respect  to  the  simplicity  of  the  soul.  It  is 
asked,  how  can  a  pure  essence  be  propagated?  is  it  derived  from 
the  father  or  the  mother,  or  both;  if  from  both,  must  it  not  be 
divisible?  Propagation  seems  to  imply  a  division  of  souls  and 
a  reunion,  and  yet  the  soul  is  not  composite,  but  simple.  We 
can  only  answer  such  questions  as  these  by  asking  others.  If 
on  account  of  simplicity  of  essence  we  exclude  man's  soul 
from  the  line  of  propagation,  we  must  also  exclude  the  animal 
soul,  for  that  too  is  simple  and  indivisible,  and  we  must  extend 
the  theory  of  Creationism  to  animals.  Indeed  we  should  hardly 
know  what  to  say  of  the  principle  of  life  in  the  vegetable.  Must 
we  assume  in  each  seed  a  new  creation?  We  should  not  be  free 
from  embarrassment  in  our  thoughts  of  the  ultimate  forces  of 
nature.  These  are  simple,  at  least  to  our  thought,  and  yet  they 
act  in  a  great  variety  of  ways,  transmit,  incorporate  themselves — 
so  to  speak — at  different  points.  Take,  e.  </.,  electricity.  In  fact 
the  old  assumption,  that  simplicity  prevents  difference  in  modes 
of  action,  has  been  abandoned. 

On  the  whole,  Traducianism  is  the  most  natural  theory,  and 
has  fewer  difficulties.  We  are  not  bound  to  answer  the  question, 
how  the  soul  is  propagated.  That  we  do  not  know.  We  need 
only  say,  that  such  appears  to  be  the  constitution  of  the  race, 
that  souls  are  potential  in  it,  are  ultimately  from  the  first  father 
of  the  race. 

Yet  this  view  should  not  be  held  so  as  to  exclude  the  agency 
of  God  from  the  origination  of  each  soul.  God  does  doubtless  act 
in  a  specific  way  in  producing  each  human  individual.  There  is  a 
peculiar  co- working  of  divine  power,  but  the  mode  of  that  agency 
need  not  be  asserted  to  be  strictly  creative.  Martensen,  Dogm. 
162,  3:  "Every  individual  is  the  effect  of  the  natural  productivity 
of  the  race,  while  the  mysterious  natural  agency  is  the  organ 
and  means  of  the  individualizing  agency  of  God."  "  Both  Tradu- 
cianism and  Creationism  are  true.1  Traducianism  alone  would 
give  us  the  natural  side,  the  copy  of  the  race:  Creationism  alone 
would  demand  absolute  purity,  which  is  inconsistent  with  the 
sinfulness  of  the  race." 

i  Pre-existence  is  also  of  course  true,  in  the  sense  that  souls  existed  in  idea  in 
the  divine  creative  cbtmeeiB. 


170  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  5.   Of  Personality. 

Man  is  made  up  of  body  and  soul,  but  he  is  also  a  personal 
agent,  and  personality  is  the  center  of  unity  to  the  conscious 
being  The  central  fact  in  respect  to  man  as  a  moral  agent  is, 
that  he  has  a  distinct  personality.  Personality  is  indefinable, 
because  ultimate.  Wherever  there  is  consciousness,  there  are 
the  elements  of  self  and  not-self  and  the  union  of  the  two:  there 
is  a  knowledge  of  self  and  of  that  which  is  not-self.  The  equiva- 
lent of  personality  is  self,  and  personality  may  be  described  as 
that  in  man  which  enables  him  to  say  "  I."  It  is  man's  self-hood, 
knowledge  of  self  (not  of  "  the  existence  of  self  ")  directly  given 
in  consciousness.  The  having  of  personality  is  what  distin- 
guishes man,  so  far  as  the  central  principle  in  him  is  concerned, 
from  the  brutes.  So  far  as  we  know,  they  do  not  distinguish  be- 
tween the  ego  and  the  non-ego.  Rudiments  and  anticipations  of 
personality  are  found  in  the  plant  and  animal:  they  have  centers 
of  life  and  activity.  Man  is  more  than  a  self-active  being;  each 
animal  is  that,  self-active  in  its  sphere;  man  is  a  personal  agent: 
he  has  a  derived  and  dependent,  but  still  a  real,  personal  agency;1 
all  that  he  does  is  an  expression,  a  manifestation  of  this  central 
personal  force,  which  is  inalienable  from  his  very  being.2  This 
personality  gives  the  possibility  of  his  fellowship  with  God,  in 
which  his  glory  as  a  man  chiefly  consists.  There  is  a  degree  of 
vagueness  about  the  use  of  the  terms,  person  and  personality. 
The  word  person  is  usually  employed  to  designate  the  whole 
man  as  apparent,  while  personality  refers  rather  to  the  center 
v  of  that  being,  to  self-hood. 

§  6.   The  primary  Fads  involved  in  aU  Personal  Agency. 
Personality  is  the  central  principle  in  man;  at  the  basis  is  the 
distinction  of  the  me  and  the  not-me,  the  personal  agent  and  the 

1  Thoinasius,  Dogm.  I.  135:  "The  divine  idea  of  man  is,  that  the  absolute 
personality  is  imaged  forth  in  the  limits  of  the  finite  and  created." 

2  Another  form  of  statement:  Man  is  self-active,  is  a  center  of  force  determined 
by  its  relations.    This  is  true  of  plants,  of  all  that  is  organized.    Brutes  are  subjects 
(individuals).     But  man's  center  is  proper  personality,  essential  to  which  are  rea- 
son and  conscience  and  affections  of  a  moral  nature,  with  free  will  as  the  organ 
of  manifestation.     Personality  and  free  will  are  inseparable;  the  latter  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  former.    In  man,  germ  (as  in  plants)  and  individuality  (as  in  brutes) 
are  merged  io  personality. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  171 

objective  universe,  with  which  he  is  placed  in  relations;  for 
man's  powers  have  respect  to  all  that  is  objective,  and  they  can- 
not be  conceived  as  acting  except  in  respect  or  relation  thereto. 
Bat  this  statement  gives  ns  only  the  central  fact  in  human  na- 
ture, not  its  full  idea.  There  are  certain  fundamental  elements 
in  all  personal  action,  or  essential  conditions  of  it,  or  primary 
facts  involved  in  it.  These  are : 

I. — Consciousness.  The  fundamental  form  of  personal  activity 
is  consciousness;  by  which  is  not  indicated  a  specific  power,  but 
the  condition  of  the  exercise  of  all  our  powers.  Consciousness 
simply  means  that  the  mind  knows  that  it  acts.  The  tree  knows 
not  that  it  grows,  but  man  feels  and  knows  it,  thinks  and  knows 
it.  He  is  also  conscious  of  the  external  world.  Consciousness 
may  be  analyzed  as  containing  the  elements:  (a.)  the  person, 
(6.)  the  object,  (c.)  a  real  connection  between  the  two.  All  of 
these  make  up  every  act  of  consciousness.  It  is  not  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  operations  of  the  person,  but  of  the  person  himself 
in  his  operations.  It  is  given  with,  not  after,  each  act.1  Brutes 
probably  have  no  proper  consciousness:  they  know,  but  do  not 
know  that  they  know:  do  not  distinguish  self  and  knowledge. 
So  perhaps,  very  young  children  do  not  say  "  I." 

This  is  the  primitive  fact  lying  at  the  basis  of  all  the  mind's 
faculties;  confirming  the  position  that  these  faculties  have  re- 
spect to  the  person's  relation  to  other  being,  to  what  is  objective. 

II. — The  fact  of  personal  identity.  Personal  identity  is  the 
continued  existence  of  the  same  self  or  person,  in  a  variety 
of  states.  The  knowledge  of  personal  identity  can  only  come 
upon  a  comparison  of  at  least  two  states  of  mind.  The  knowl- 
edge of  self  may  be  given  in  a  single  act;  personal  identity 
implies  a  comparison  of  at  least  two.  One  state  of  conscious- 
ness gives  us  self  and  an  object:  another,  self,  an  object,  and 
the  sameness  of  self  in  this  diversity  of  states.  This  also  is  a 
primitive  fact  in  relation  to  the  soul's  agency,  and  is  so  deeply 
involved  that  doubt  of  it,  in  a  sane  person,  is  a  psycholog- 
ical impossibility;  the  doubt  cannot  be  stated  without  affirm- 
ing  the  fact:  the  doubt  annuls  itself.  The  identity  which  we 

!  Yet  "  the  marvel  6f  cbnstidusnefte  involves  the  marvel  of  memory  "  (Maurice) 


172  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

know  in  personal  identity  is  that  of  the  soul,  the  self,  not  of 
the  particles  of  the  body.  A  person  may  lose  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  identity,  but  not  the  identity  itself.  Identity  is  not 
in  consciousness, — though  Locke  says:  "Identity  is  depend- 
ent on  consciousness." 

III. — The  continuity  of  the  mental  states.  This  is  the  third 
fact  lying  at  the  basis  of  the  mind's  operations.  This  is  distinct 
from  identity,  though  identity  is  involved  in  it.  •  The  fact  is 
this :  the  states  of  the  mind  are  held  together  by  the  self  or  per- 
son in  the  unity  of  consciousness;  they  succeed  one  another  in 
time  and  are  mutually  dependent;  they  serve  to  produce  and  re- 
produce one  another.  This  fact  is  connected  with  the  existence 
of  the  soul  in  time.  Given  the  identity  of  the  person  and  the 
continued  existence  in  time,  and  the  product  is,  the  continuity 
of  states.  A  part  of  this  fact  is  what  is  known  in  general  under 
the  term,  association  of  ideas,  but  the  whole  fact  is  more  than 
that:  it  is  the  association  of  all  the  states  of  the  mind.  It  in- 
volves memory.  There  are:  (1)  successive  states;  (2)  which  are 
also  dependent;  (3)  which  are  retained  after  passing;  (4)  which 
come  up  again,  as  they  at  first  co-existed:  (a.)  some,  always  to- 
gether as  ideas,  etc. ;  (6.)  some,  as  faculties  always  operating  to- 
gether (Hamilton's  Law  of  Reproduction). 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  above  are/ads,  notfaculties, 
of  the  mind. 

IV.— In  all  its  operations  the  mind  is  an  active  agent,  work- 
ing for  some  end  or  object;  it  is  an  efficient  cause  working  for  a 
final  cause ;  and  the  final  cause,  or  the  object,  for  which  it  works, 
exists  and  must  exist  in  itself,  as  impulse  or  motive.  This  is  a 
universal  law  or  condition  of  all  the  mind's  practical  agency, 
activity,  in  relation  to  what  is  objective,  different  from  itself. 
The  ultimate  ground  or  reason  for  the  action  is  in  the  mind 
itself:  (1)  as  efficiency,  (2)  also  as  the  impulse,  motive  (the  ob- 
jective as  subjective). 

V. — In  all  its  agency  the  mind  is  both  active  and  passive. 
This  is  virtually  contained  in  the  preceding.  It  is  the  necessary 
result  of  man's  finiteness,  that  he  should  be  both  acted  upon  and 
active,  receptive  and  reactivS.  Even  in  the  animal  soul  there 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.  173 

are  spontaneous  reactions,  and  in  the  lowest  spheres  of  organized 
being,  this  law  is  shown  in  contractility  and  expansibility.  In 
respect  to  the  soul,  there  are  influences  from  without,  waking 
it  up,  and  reactions,  by  spontaneous  power  or  force,  in  view  of 
these.  There  is  no  conceivable  activity  of  the  mind  which  is  not 
under  this  law.  Still,  the  mind,  when  acted  on,  is  only  excited  to 
self-agency,  to  manifest  what  it  is  in  itself,  in  the  way  of  re-agency. 

§  7.   The  Powers  and  Faculties  of  the  Soul 

All  of  these  facts,  now,  of  personality:  consciousness,  identity, 
continuity  of  states,  and  action  for  ends,  are  presupposed  in  moral 
agency,  are  conditions  of  such  agency ;  they  are  at  the  basis  of  all 
the  operations  of  the  mind;  they  are  the  conditions  of  the  exercise 
of  all  the  faculties.  But  they  are  not  these  faculties  or  powers 
themselves.  What  these  are,  we  are  now  to  inquire.  Under  the 
above  conditions  all  man's  powers  act:  what  are  these  powers? 
The  faculties  themselves  are  man's  essential  powers  as  a  moral 
agent. 

I. — Of  the  method  of  determining  as  to  the  faculties. 

The  term,  faculty,  is  variously  used.  In  attempting  to  de- 
fine it,  we  are  apt  to  run  into  a  practical  difficulty,  which  is  the 
division  of  the  mind,  more  or  less  after  the  phrenological  method. 
1 1  is  easy  to  say  that  we  do  not  mean  to  divide  up  the  soul,  but 
difficult  to  get  rid  practically  of  the  feeling  that  we  have  done 
so,  when  we  have  distinguished  its  faculties.  Many  of  our 
reasonings  go  upon  the  supposition  of  a  real  division,  e.  g.,  in 
ethics  and  theology,  as  respects  the  question  whether  regener- 
ation is  of  the  will  or  the  affections.  If  we  only  can  refer  it  to 
the  will,  it  seems  as  though  we  had  made  it  much  clearer  than 
if  we  say  it  is  in  the  affections;  but  we  have  not,  in  reality;  we 
have  only  put  the  work  into  another  word.  In  determining  the 
faculties,  the  following  points  are  to  be  observed:  (a.)  The  mind 
acts  as  one  indivisible  faculty  or  power,  in  all  that  it  does.  There 
is  one  undivided  energy  in  all  its  operations;  and  in  almost  all 
its  acts,  all  the  main  faculties  work  together:  man  acts  as  a 
person,  an  agent,  not  as  an  intellect  or  emotion;  e.  </.,  a  person 
etoops  to  pick  up  a  stone:  he  perceives  the  stone,  and  here  is  at 


174  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

work  in  the  intellect;  he  desires  to  take  it  up, — in  the  emotions; 
he  determines  to  take  it  up, — in  the  will.  (6.)  Our  divisions 
then,  are  matters  of  convenience  and  classification,  and  do  not 
imply  real  divisions  in  the  mind's  operations,  (c.)  By  faculties 
or  powers,  is  meant  about  this:  the  largest  classes  of  distin- 
guishable operations  under  which  we  can  consider  the  mind  and 
its  actions;  the  largest  classes  of  operations  in  respect  to  objects 
under  which  we  can  view  the  mind;  intellectual  powers  having 
respect  to  knowledge  about  objects ;  sentient,  to  feeling ;  will,  to 
choice  and  action,  in  regard  to  them.  Or,  stating  the  matter 
from  another  point  of  view:  A  general  faculty  is  a  class  of  oper- 
ations having  respect  to  some  specific  function  of  the  agent,  a 
distinct  mode  of  operation.  (There  is  a  difference  between 
power  and  state,  which  comes  up  for  consideration  later.) 
(d.)  The  rules  for  division  into  faculties:  (1)  The  sum  of  the 
divisions  must  include  all  the  phenomena  of  the  mind:  nothing 
in  it  must  be  left  unassigned.  This  is  the  rule  of  comprehen- 
siveness. (2)  In  each  division  or  faculty,  there  must  be  one 
class  of  phenomena  unlike  those  which  are  found  in  the  others. 
If  all  the  phenomena  in  one  division  are  like  those  included  in 
any  other,  there  is  no  line  of  demarcation.  This  is  the  rule  of 
similarity  and  difference.  (3)  The  ground  of  the  divisions  must 
be  sought  in  the  characteristics  of  the  phenomena  themselves. 
We  must  make  the  division  on  the  basis  of  facts  found  in  the 
phenomena.  We  must  not  come  from  the  outside  and  put  a 
foreign  measure  upon  them.  We  must  not  divide  by  mathe- 
matics or  metaphysics,  but  psychologically,  by  the  laws  of  the 
phenomena  themselves.  This  is  the  rule  of  characteristic  qual- 
ities as  the  principle  of  division. 

II. — The  divisions  themselves. 

According  to  the  principles  and  rules  above  given,  the  main 
faculties  :>f  the  human  mind  will  be  those  of  Intellect,  Feeling, 
and  Will,  The  old  distribution  was  two-fold:1  understanding 
and  will,  perceptive  and  active  powers.  (This,  Edwards  pro- 
ceeds upon.)  The  division  almost  universally  current  now  is 
that  of  Intellect,  Sensibilities,  and  Will:  the  phenomena  of  the 
i  Yet  Aquinas  had  the  three-fold  distinction  as  clearly  as  any  modern  writer. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION,  175 

will  being  separated  from  those  of  the  desires  and  affections. 
There  are  unquestionably  such  phenomena,  which  cannot  be 
brought  under  either  of  the  other  classes  without  constraint, 
though  .there  is  a  constant  tendency  to  give  to  the  will  an  au- 
tonomy which  does  not  belong  to  it.  These  three  main  powers 
express  man's  relations  to  what  is  objective  to  himself;  they  are 
real  powers  for  these  relations.  The  most  general  statement  in 
respect  to  them  is  this:  by  the  intellect,  we  know,  perceive 
what  is  objective;  by  the  sensibilities,  we  desire,  or,  more 
generally,  are  affected  in  a  feeling  way,  in  regard  to  what  is 
objective;  and  by  the  will — considered  as  separate  from  the  af- 
fections— we  decide  to  act  in  respect  to  objective  things;  and 
by  the  will — considered  as  in  union  with  the  affections — we 
choose,  prefer,  love  them.  This  act  of  will  as  love  includes  the 
action  of  all  the  faculties:  it  is  the  concentrated  action  of  all 
our  powers,  of  the  whole  man,  in  relation  to  the  objects  and 
ends  for  which  he  is  made. 

These  three  faculties  are  also  described  in  another  way:  as 
expressing  differences  in  nearness  of  relation  to  objects.  By 
the  intellect,  we  view  what  is  outside  ourselves  simply  as  a  mat- 
ter of  contemplation;  by  the  feelings,  we  are  drawn  towards  the 
objects  and  desire  them;  by  the  will,  we  put  forth  activity  in 
regard  to  them,  and  make  them  our  own  as  far  as  we  can.  So 
that  in  the  will  we  have  the  closest  conjunction  of  man  with  the 
objects  around  him.  The  will  marries  the  man  to  what  he  de- 
sires and  seeks. 

1.  The  Intellect.  In  the  intellect  man  is  contemplated  as 
knowing.  (Sensation  and  perception  are  commonly  brought 
under  the  intellect,  although  in  sensation  there  is  also  a  phys- 
ical side.  In  a  more  correct  division  of  Anthropology,  what  ha& 
respect  to  the  body  would  be  separated  and  treated  by  itself  as 
the  basis  of  the  activity  of  the  mind.  In  the  senses,  there  are 
physical  elements,  and  the  intellect  is  secondary.)  Under  the 
intellect  are  comprised  all  the  processes  by  which  man  obtains, 
retains,  and  combines  knowledge;  and  all  through  which  the 
knowledge  thus  obtained  is  brought  under  generalization,  sug- 
gestion, and  memory;  the  logical  processes,  inductive  and  de 


176  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ductive,  are  included,  together  with  the  powers  by  which  we 
apprehend  ideas.1 

2.  The  Sensibilities.     Under  the  sensibilities  are  combined 
all   the  faculties  which  have  the  common  element  of  .feeling. 
Their  having  this  common  characteristic  is  what  .warrants  us 
in  making  this  common  division  of  them.     Though  the  sensi- 
bilities are  widely  different  from  one  another,  yet  they  all  have 
this  common  element.     There  are  the  desires  which  are  con- 
nected with  our  animal  organization ;  then,  the  higher  emotions 
in  view  of  the  beautiful,  etc. ;  then,  our  highest  moral  feelings 
and  affections,  which  come  forth  in  connection  with  our  relation 
to  other  personal  agents.     Under  this  head  belong  all  those  af- 
fections which  unite  us  to  nature,  to  our  kind,  and  to  God.     The 
permanent  acts  and  states  of  the  will  are  referred  by  many  to 
this  division.     But  the  permanent  moral  states  of  man  are  both 
feeling  and  will,  and  cannot  be  referred  to  either  class  by  itself. 

3.  The  Will.     As  this  comes  up  again,  we  only  remark  here, 
that  the  common  characteristic  by  which  we  set  off  a  certain 
class  of  operations  of  the  mind,  called  the  Will,  is  that  of  choice 
or  preference.     Wherever  there  is  choice  there  is  will.     Intellect 
and  feeling  are  necessary  conditions  of  the  choice,  but  the  choice 
is  distinct  from  both.     The  act  of  the  will  is  the  simple  act  of 
choice  or  determination,  a  putting  forth  of  power  in  relation  to 
some  perceived  or  desired  object.     And  it  is  always  accompanied 
by  the  possibility  of  not  putting  forth  this  act,  which  possibility 
is  grounded  in  the  very  nature  and  definition  of  the  Will.     The 
will  may  not  have  in  distinct  view  more  than  one  object,  but 
there  is  the  possibility  not  only  of  choosing  but  of  refusing  that 
object,  so  that  there  are  always  two  objects  in  fact,  though  there 
may  be  only  one  in  consciousness. 

§  8.   Of  tJie  original  Tendencies  of  Man's  Soul 
We  have  considered  the  general  relations  in  which  man  is 
placed,  and  then  the  specific  characteristics  of  the  individual;  we 

1  If  the  philosophy  of  the  subject  "were  here  our  chief  aim,  we  should  urge 
that  it  is  undoubtedly  better  to  consider  under  psychology  only  the  faculties  and 
their  operations,  and  to  take  up  the  subject  of  ideas  as  another  part  of  philosophy 
— metaphysics  proper. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  177 

are  now  to  consider  the  tendencies  of  the  individual  man  in 
respect  to  these  relations.  The  personal  agent,  with  intellect, 
affections,  and  will,  is  placed  in,  is  an  integral  part  of,  the  uni- 
verse; he  has  thereby  certain  relations  to  nature,  to  his  fellow- 
beings,  and  to  God.  And  he  not  only  has  general  faculties  and 
powers,  but  also  implanted,  specific  tendencies,  constituting  the 
bent,  bias  of  his  soul  in  respect  to  these  relations.  He  has 
inherent  relations  to  nature,  man,  and  God;  and  to  these  relations 
correspond  certain  implanted,  connatural  tendencies,  which  are 
not  his  faculties,  which  cannot  be  resolved  into  his  faculties, 
which  are  the  connatural  or  native  biases  of  his  soul. 

These  tendencies,  abstractly  considered,  are  neither  right  nor 
wrong.  As  we  find  them  in  actual  exercise,  out  of  their  proper 
state  of  subordination  and  government,  they  are  wrong;  but  in 
themselves,  viewed  simply  as  implanted  tendencies  and  con- 
natural dispositions,  they  are  neither  right  nor  wrong:1  1  Cor. 
vi.  13;  Mark  vii.  15;  1  Tim.  iv.  3.  There  is  an  aspect  of  the 
flesh  and  of  the  will  of  the  flesh  in  which  they  are  necessary 
constituents  of  human  nature.  The  antagonism  of  flesh  and 
spirit,  as  given  in  Horn.  vii.  22,  23,  Gal.  v.  17,  is  not  the 
original,  but  a  degenerate  state.  The  only  rule  by  which  to 
measure  the  character  of  these  native  tendencies  or  impulses 
is  that  of  proportion — the  lower  under  the  higher — in  a  strict 
subordination :  if  they  are  not  in  that  state,  they  have  become 
evil:  Luke  xvi.  10;  Matt.  vi.  33;  Luke  x.  27.  All  that  is  lower 
is  to  be  subordinated  to  the  higher — to  the  highest — ends. 
That  alone  is  a  normal  state  in  which  this  is  the  case:  Matt, 
iv.  4;  1  Cor.  iii.  21-23. 

Another  form  of  statement :  Man  is  placed  in  the  midst  of 
varied  relations,  as  an  integral  part  of  a  great  whole.  Corre- 
sponding to  these  relations,  he  has  specific  impulses  and  desires. 
There  is  for  him  a  good  in  the  various  objects  to  which  he  is  re- 
lated, and  in  which  he  finds  happiness  according  to  the  measure 
of  each  object  and  relation. 

The  leading  tendencies  may  be  classified  by  means  of  the 

•  They  may  become,  and  actually  are,  in  all  cases  of  exercise,  probably,  either 
right  or  wrong. 


178  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

leading  relations.  (1)  Tendencies  as  impulses,  having  respect 
to  the  preservation  of  the  body,  as  the  love  of  life,  hunger,  etc. 
(2)  Those  which  have  respect  to  the  continuance  of  the  species, 
— sexual  love,  family  affections,  etc.  (3)  Those  which  have  re- 
spect to  society  and  the  state,  our  social  instincts  in  a  wider 
sphere ;  the  love  of  man  for  his  kind ;  the  disposition  to  unite  in 
social  order,  which  gives  rise  to  the  state. and  ultimately  forma 
government.  (4)  Moral  tendencies  (using  "moral"  in  a  restricted 
sense):  those  which  have  respect  to  our  specific  moral  relations 
to  other  finite  personal  agents,  giving  rise  to  human  "rights"; 
which  tendencies  are  also  to  be  regarded  as  specific  and  im- 
planted. (5)  Those  which  have  respect  to  what  is  beyond  the 
sphere  of  time  and  sense;  to  a  supersensuous  and  supernatural 
world,  to  the  proper  and  highest  Supernatural,  to  the  Divine. 
Man  has  these  as  truly  as  he  has  the  tendencies  and  relations 
of  the  body  or  of  society.  Man  is  made  to  be  religious,  and  he 
has  a  tendency  or  bias  in  respect  to  that  implanted  in  him.1 

These  are  the  main  tendencies,  different  from  the  faculties; 
they  are  the  man  in  all  his  relations;  they  exist  more  or  less  in 
all;  they  express,  according  as  they  are  in  proper  measure  or 
are  inordinate,  the  bias  of  each  individual  in  view  of  his  rela- 
tions; and  in  these  tendencies,  all  the  faculties  meet  and  act. 
There  is  always  involved  in  them  a  feeling  of  conscious  want 
and  an  impulse  towards  its  realization,  so  that  they  may  be  said 
to  move  between  the  poles  of  need  and  desire. 

§  9.   Of  Conscience. 

Conscience  is  a  collective  term,  embracing  certain  natural  oper- 
ations of  the  mind  in  view  of  what  has  moral  quality,  in  view  of 
right  and  wrong,  whether  this  exist  in  law,  states,  acts,  or  relations. 

It  is  often  taken  in  narrower  senses.  (1)  It  is  sometimes 
taken  as  a  special  faculty,  which  decides  upon  single  acts  im- 
peratively, by  a  sort  of  sovereign  arbitrament,  without  respect  to 
anything  but  the  individual  act.2  Hence  an  objection  is  some- 

1  "  Man  is  a  religious — animal"  (Edm.  Burke). 

2  See  an  article  on  Conscience,  by  Pres.  Day,  in  New  Englander,  May,  1856 
It  is  a  "moral  faculty" ;  its  decisions  relate  to  acts  and  states  of  a  man's  own  mind, 
though  it  may  judge  also  about  others;  if  allowed  to  be  perverted,  "we  cannot  do 
right  either  in  obeying  or  disobeying  it." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  179 

times  brought  to  its  very  being,  from  the  fact  of  different 
decisions  by  different  men  and  peoples.  (2)  By  others  it  is 
taken  as  chiefly  an  emotion,  as  a  particular  kind  of  compla- 
cency or  displacency  in  view  of  our  acts.  (So  Brown  and 
Mackintosh.  On  the  other  hand,  Butler:  "We  cannot  form 
ji  notion  of  this  faculty  without  a  judgment.")  (3)  It  is  de- 
scribed by  others  as  a  law;  a  transcript  of  the  divine  law 
upon  the  human  soul;  God's  law  in  man's  soul;  the  presence 
of  God  in  the  soul,  always  judging  and  warning  in  respect 
to  acts.  (So  Coleridge.) 

All  these  different  statements  have  a  partial  truth,  present- 
ing different  aspects  of  what  is  included  in  the  general  term. 
Conscience  is  better  viewed,  not  as  a  special  faculty,  but  as  that 
combination  of  powers  by  which  we  judge  and  feel  in  respect  to 
moral  right  and  wrong.  It  embraces  operations  of  the  mind  in 
view  of  what  has  moral  quality,  which  are  partly  of  the  intellect 
and  partly  of  the  feelings.  Conscience  as  a  power  cannot  be 
brought  exclusively  under  either:  it  is  combined  of  the  mind's 
operations  both  in  respect  to  feeling,  and  to  judging  of  and  in 
respect  to  moral  right  and  wrong.  The  term  Conscience  no 
more  designates  a  special  faculty  than  the  term  Keligion  does.1/ 
Under  religion  we  comprise  all  the  mind's  operations  in  respect 
to  God;  under  conscience  are  comprised  all  the  mind's  operations 
of  judging  and  feeling  in  view  of  rectitude. 

The  elements  that  belong  to  it,  or  the  different  points  in  its 
action,  are  the  following: 

1.  It  discriminates:    discerns  right  and  wrong  in   actions, 
states,  etc. ;  has  a  knowledge  of  moral  right  and  wrong  as  ulti- 
mate.    This  may  be  called  the  intellectual  part  of  conscience. 

2.  It  feels:  (a.)  it  has  the  feeling  of  obligation,  of  what  Kant 
calls  "the  categorical  imperative:"  when  we  know  the  right, 
we  feel  that  we  ought  to  do  it.     This  is   an  urgent  feeling. 
(&.)  Besides  the  above,  there  is  another  emotion:  a  susceptibility 
to  right  and  wrong,  a  capacity  of  being  moved  by  the  excellency 
of  the  one  and  the  heinousness  of  the  other. 

3.  It  approves  or  disapproves:  judges  morally  about  the  right   « 

>  Or  than  the  ^Esthetic  sense. 


180  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

and  wrong  in  states,  conditions  of  things,  conduct,  etc.,  on  tke 
ground  of  conformity  to  right,  or  not. 

4.  It  passes  sentence:  has  a  sense  of  the  merit  of  those  who 
do  right  and  of  the  demerit  of  those  who  do  wrong.  The  sense 
and  judgment  as  to  what  is  due  in  respect  to  reward  and  punish- 
ment belong  eminently  to  conscience.1 

Some  definitions:  Aquinas,  Summa  Theol.  i.  79,  13,  gives — 
"  actualis-applicatio  scientias  ad  ea  quae  agimus."  Butler,  Serm.  i. : 
"  This  principle  in  man  by  which  he  approves  or  disapproves  his 
heart,  temper,  or  actions  is  conscience;  for  this  is  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word,  though  sometimes  it  is  used  so  as  to  take  in  more." 
Locke:  "It  is  our  own  judgment  of  the  rectitude  or  purity  of 
our  own  actions."  Stewart,  Act.  and  Mor.  Powers:  Conscience 
"  refers  to  our  own  conduct  alone,"  while  "  the  moral  faculty  " 
includes  also  judgments  on  others.  But  the  unity  of  conscience 
is  not  in  its  being  one  faculty  or  in  its  performing  one  function, 
but  in  its  having  one  object,  its  relation  to  one  idea,  viz.,  Right. 

Having  made  these  general  statements  as  to  the  nature  and 
functions  of  conscience,  we  proceed  to  some  special  points  which 
arise  under  it. 

(A.)  The  Scripture  Testimony.  The  Scripture  presupposes 
the  existence  of  conscience  in  men.  In  the  Old  Testament  the 
word  conscience  is  not  found;  we  have  the  word,  "heart,"  in 
which  moral  judgments  and  feelings  are  implied  throughout. 
(There  are  in  the  Septuagint  one  or  two  instances  in  which  the 
Greek  word  corresponding  to  conscience  is  used.  See  Die  Lehre 
vom  Gewissen  nach  d.  Schrift.  Guder  in  Stud.  u.  Krit,  1857.) 
In  the  New  Testament  the  nature  and  functions  of  conscience 
are  developed  most  distinctly  by  Paul,  who  has  been  called 
"  the  Apostle  of  Conscience." 

1.  Conscience  referred  to  in  the  Old  Testament:  Jer.  xx.  9: 
1  Kings  ii.  44;  Prov.  vii.  22;  Jer.  xvii.  1;  Job  xxvii.  6;  1  Sam 
xxiv.  10;  Ps.  xxxii. ;  xxxviii. ;  li.;  1  Kings  viii.  38;  Hos.  vii.  2. 

1  Another  statement:  Conscience  acts:  (a.)  before  we  act,— as  monitor;  (&.)  when 
and  \vhile  we  act,— as  motive;  (c.)  after  we  act, — as  judge,  and  also,  in  part  as 
dispenser  of  the  award,  as  executioner  of  the  doom. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  181 

2.  Nature  of  conscience  as  recognized  in  the  New  Testament : 
Rom.  ii.  15;  2  Cor.  i.  12;  iv.  2;  v.  11;  1  Cor.  viii.  7,  10,  12;  x.  25, 
27-29;  1  Pet.  ii.  19  (conscience  as  determined  by  the  previous 
knowledge  of  God).     These  are  the  chief  passages  showing  how 
conscience  is  regarded  as  to  its  essence  and  principal  functions. 

3.  The  relation  of  conscience  to  the  faith  and  life:  1  Tim.  i.  5; 
i.  19;  iii.  9;  1  Pet.  iii.  16. 

4.  The  good  conscience:    Heb.  xiii.  18;  2  Cor.  i.  12;  Acts 
xxiii.  1;  xxiv.  16;  Rom.  xiii.  5;  2  Cor.  iv.  2;  v.  11. 

5.  The  weak  conscience:  1  Cor.  viii.  7,  12. 

6.  The  evil  and  perverted  conscience:  1  Tim.  iv.  2;  Tit.  i. 
15;  Heb.  ix.  14;  x.  22. 

.  The  sum:  Tho  Scriptures  set  forth  that  the  mind  has  a  native 
capacity  of  judgment  and  feeling  in  respect  to  moral  subjects; 
but  that  this  may  be  enfeebled,  darkened,  and  even  perverted,  so 
as  to  become  a  source  of  delusion  and  a  snare. 

(B.)  The  existence  of  conscience  proves  a  moral  law  above  us, 
for  which  we  were  made.  It  testifies  constantly  to  the  grand 
fact  that  man  is  a  moral  being,  made  for  moral  ends.  It  leads 
logically  to  the  position  that  there  is  a  moral  Lawgiver:  a  moral 
order  of  the  world  directed  by  a  moral  Governor.  This  law  is 
universal:  Rom.  ii.  14.  There  is  not  merely  an  outward  law; 
it  is  also  written  on  the  heart:  Rom.  ii.  15.  Cicero:  "Nor  does 

it  speak  one  language  at  Rome  and  another  at  Athens but 

to  all  nations  and  ages,  deriving  its  authority  from  the  common 
sovereign  of  the  universe,  and  carrying  home  its  sanctions  to 
every  heart,"  Butler,  Serin,  ii.,  upon  Hum.  Nat.  (ad  sensum): 
"  Superintendence  is  a  constituent  part  of  the  faculty  of  con- 
science, and  to  govern  belongs  to  it,  from  the  constitution 
of  man." 

(C.)  The  existence  of  conscience  thus  testifying  to  a  moral 
law,  implies  an  essential  distinction  between  right  and  wrong, 
an  immutable  morality.  It  acts  in  view  of  Right,  which  is  a 
simple  idea,  no  more  to  be  resolved  than  the  idea  of  Beauty. 


182  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

From  this  judgment  we  cannot  get  rid.  We  can  no  more  help 
pronouncing  this  and  that  action  to  be  wrong  or  right,  than  we 
can  help  judging  this  or  that  proportion  to  be  true  or  false.  We 
not  only  say  pleasant  or  painful,  but  we  are  also  compelled  to 
say  right  or  wrong:  to  put  one  of  these  words  on  each  of  our 
acts.  We  may  give  good  or  bad  reasons  for  the  judgment,  but 
we  sum  up  by  saying,  right  or  wrong.  The  conscience  may  be 
perverted  so  as  to  say  evil  is  good,  and  good  is  evil ;  but  still  it 
says  evil  is  good,  etc.,  i.  e.,  it  pronounces  a  moral  judgment.  And 
in  that  judgment  each  one  for  himself  rests,  as  final  and  sufficient, 
In  individuals  there  are  differences  in  details l  about  particular 
courses  of  conduct,  but  still  a  moral  judgment  and  decision  is 
applied  throughout. 

That  there  is  this  independent  moral  judgment,  is  proved  by 
several  considerations. 

1.  By  our  constant  consciousness.     We  are  invariably  pro- 
nouncing this  judgment  on  ourselves:  it  is  a  concomitant  of  all 
our  own  acts.2     It  is  a  judgment  we  are  ever  passing  on  others. 
And  its  power  is  seen  in  the  simple  fact  that  it  binds  us  to  a 
law  from  which  we  would,  as  sinners,  gladly  escape. 

2.  By  the  consensus  gentium,  as  shown  in  laws,  customs,  lan- 
guage,  proverbs,  literature.     The   noblest   dramatic   literature 
especially  runs  back  into  this  conviction.     The  State  is  a  moral 
body,  existing  for  moral  ends:  this  is  the  idea  of  it,  though  in 
actual  practice,  it  is  often  otherwise. 

3.  By  the  early  and  instinctive  moral  judgments  of  children. 
They  can  be  led  to  a  moral  judgment  as  quickly  as  any.     And 
then  in  proportion  to  the  progress  of  men  in  knowledge  and 
culture,  they  judge  more  and  more  according  to  the  simple 
standard  and  rule  of  right. 

4.  (though  this  may  be  a  branch  of  the  1st):  Even  when 
reasoning  from  expediency,  from  prudential  considerations,  we 
cannot  stop  with  the  affirmation  "This  is  expedient":  we  pass 

»  Though  differing  in  details,  conscience  is  generally  true  in  the  main  princi- 
ples, e.  </.,  Honesty  is  always  right;  Ingratitude  is  always  wrong;  Selfishness  is 
sinful;  Benevolence  is  virtuous. 

2  "  A  guardian  angel  or  an  avenging  fiend"  (Coleridge). 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  183 

to  the  further  affirmation,  "  It  is  right "  and  therefore  binding. 
And  it  is  an  inexplicable  fact  that  after  saying  anything  ia 
for  the  highest  good,  we  should  also  say  that  it  is  right,  if  right 
be  not  the  ultimate  ground  of  decision,  the  consideration  which 
is  simple,  ultimate,  supreme.  This  fact  no  utilitarian  scheme 
can  master. 

(J9.)  This  perception  (and  feeling)  of  right  and  wrong  is  im- 
mediately attended  by  a  feeling  of  obligation  to  do  the  right 
and  refuse  the  wrong.  We  are  obligated  morally  to  do  only  what 
is  morally  right.  No  force  can  morally  bind  us  which  is  not 
resolvable  into  right.  This  feeling  of  obligation  is  definite  and 
peculiar.  It  is  expressed  by  the  word  "ought."  It  enforces  a 
simple  and  imperative  obligation.  In  calling  it  the  "  categorical 
imperative,"  Kant  frees  morals  from  the  happiness  scheme. 
Right  and  Ought  are  inseparable:  we  need  no  intervening 
terms.  From  a  simple  regard  to  happiness  or  the  general  good 
we  cannot  derive  this  sense  of  "oughtness";  we  can  only  derive 
impulse,  tendency,  desire,  not  a  specific  moral  obligation.  On 
the  utilitarian  view,  the  highest  idea  of  obligation  is  that  man 
should  perform  that  which  is  for  the  highest  good;  but  that 
gives  only  desirableness.  The  statement  eliminates  from  the 
word  "ought"  its  whole  force.  Why  "should"  I,  or  "ought"  I 
to  seek  the  highest  good  ?  As  a  means  of  happiness,  it  is  desir- 
able, but  why  is  it  morally  binding  on  me  ?  The  only  possible 
answer  is,  because  I  feel  that  it  is  right  and  therefore  I  ought 
to  do  it.  This  ought  is  native  to  the  soul ;  it  comes  up  before  we 
have  any  conception  or  idea  of  the  highest  good ;  children  feel 
its  force  against  all  that  seems  to  be  pleasant  or  desirable. 

(E.)  In  the  operations  of  conscience  there  is  always  involved 
moral  approval  or  disapproval.  We  need  not  dwell  on  this 
further  than  to  say  that  these  are  emotions  arising  in  view 
of  rectitude  or  its  opposite.  Moral  approval  and  disapproval 
cannot  be  derived  from  the  idea  of  happiness  or  good :  all  we  can 
get  from  that  source  is,  pleasure  and  displeasure,  satisfaction 
and  discontent 


184  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


Of  merit  and  demerit.  There  is  further  involved  in 
conscience  a  special  judgment  in  view  of  personal  account- 
ability. It  differs  from  approval  and  disapproval,  as  having 
special  (though  perhaps  not  always  exclusive)  regard  to  per- 
sonal acts  and  liabilities,  or  responsibility.  The  merit  of  per- 
sons is  their  desert  of  good  on  account  of  right  moral  action  ; 
demerit,  their  desert  of  evil,  suffering,  personal  punishment, 
on  account  of  transgression.  This  judgment  is  made  with 
respect  to  each  individual  as  under  the  law,  as  an  account- 
able moral  agent;  and  it  is  strictly  according  to  each  one's 
personal  character,  on  the  basis  of  personal  acts.  Hence 
the  judgment  of  merit  or  demerit  cannot  be  pronounced  until 
there  has  been  personal  choice  or  action.  On  the  utility 
scheme,  we  cannot  distinguish  between  regret  and  remorse, 
between  the  natural  consequences  and  the  deserved  punish- 
ment of  transgression. 

(6r.)  The  domain  or  sphere  of  conscience.  To  what  does 
conscience  apply,  or  what  is  under  its  supervision  ?  As  a 
general  answer  to  this  question  we  say:  Everything  in  which 
there  is  moral  quality;  everything  in  which  right  and  wrong 
can  be  found  or  are  exemplified.  Subjectively  considered,  as 
my  conscience,  it  has  special  respect  to  my  moral  states  and 
acts.  In  its  fullest  exercise,  in  the  use  of  all  its  functions  — 
including  the  ascription  of  merit  and  demerit  —  it  is  applied  only 
to  individual,  personal  character;  but  in  some  of  its  activities 
it  has  a  wider  scope  than  personal  actions.  Conscience  is  no* 
merely  my  conscience. 

1.  We  pass  moral  judgments  about  laws  and  institutions,  etc. 
Wherever  right  and  wrong  can  be  applied,  conscience  has  its 
sphere.  We  say,  such  a  law  or  enactment  is  right  or  wrong:  it 
is  conformed  or  not  conformed  to  a  standard.  What  do  we  mean 
by  that  judgment?  Do  we  refer  merely  to  the  motives  and 
character  of  the  men  who  passed  the  law  ?  No;  for  we  also  say, 
they  were  right  or  wrong  in  passing  it.  We  refer  to  its  abstract 
iiature,  as  conformed  to  the  moral  standard.  The  law  is  not  a 
person  or  the  act  of  a  person.  We  speak  of  the  divine  law  as 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  185 

holy,  just,  and  good,  although  it  is  not  a  person.  So  the  State 
is  a  moral  body,  and  we  judge  its  officers  not  merely  as  individ- 
uals, but  as  officers  of  the  law.  We  may  pass  a  moral  judgment 
on  a  treatise  on  Ethics,  although  it  has  no  merit  or  demerit  in  a 
personal  sense.  Either  it  is  true  that  conscience  has  a  wider 
scope  than  personal  acts,  or  we  must  say  that  the  judgments 
about  right  and  wrong  do  not  belong  to  the  conscience,  but 
to  the  intellect.  We  should  then  make  conscience  to  be  an 
emotion. 

2.  We  pass  judgments  not  merely  upon  laws,  institutions, 
books,   etc.,   but  upon  dispositions  and  tendencies,  when  not 
acting  or  antecedent  to  action.     A  man   asleep   has  a  moral 
character.     Dispositions  which  underlie  action,  native  tenden- 
cies of  the  mind,   are   estimated   and   passed   upon   from   the 
moral   point   of  view.     We   do   not   indeed   make   such  judg- 
ments in  an  individual,   personal   sense;   but  we  make   them 
in    a   general    and    truly   moral    sense.      That   we   do   this   is 
evident   from    common   forms   of  speech,   and   from    our   own 
consciousness.     I   cannot   help   believing  and  saying   that   an 
inordinate   self-love,   viewed   as   a   disposition,   is   wrong,   and 
needs  to  be  extirpated  by  divine  grace. 

If  it  be  asked  whether  the  law  is  worthy  of  punishment,  and 
the  disposition,  of  everlasting  condemnation,  the  answer  is,  No,1 
but  none  the  less  is  the  law  worthy  of  moral  disapprobation, 
and  the  disposition  also;  and  we  are  bound,  as  moral  beings, 
to  oppose  the  one  and  eradicate  the  other.  It  may  be  still 
asked,  does  not  a  moral  decision  always  imply  desert  of  re- 
ward or  punishment?  It  always  does  when,  and  only  when, 
it  has  respect  to  the  acts  of  moral  beings;  it  always  does 
when  applied  in  the  way  of  strict  personal  accountability. 
But  there  is  here  a  new  element,  warranting  another  judgment, 
viz.,  that  of  personal  desert. 

3.  Conscience,  in  judging  of  the  individual  in  his  personal 
liabilities  «ind  relations,  judges  of  his  outward  acts  as  they  are 
presumed  to  contain  personal  intentions  or  moral  dispositions. 

1  The  theological  statement  that  an  evil  disposition,  a  native  depravity,  causes 
liability  to  eternal  condemnation  comes  up  in  its  proper  place. 


186  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Conscience  does  not  blame  the  acts  of  the  body  as  such,  nor  ex 
ecutive  acts  of  the  will  as  such,  but  blames  the  person  for  being 
influenced  by  wrong  emotions  in  what  he  does.  The  executive 
acts  of  the  will  and  the  external  acts  of  the  man  are  viewed  in 
relation  to  the  right  and  wrong  motive;  but  even  the  motive  is 
not  what  is  blamed,  but  the  person  for  being  influenced  by  the 
motive. 

4.  The  opposite  view  is  that  conscience  has  only  to  do  with 
exercises,  choices;  and  has  no  other  function  than  the  personal 
one.  This  rests  on  two  assumptions,  (a.)  That  conscience  des- 
ignates a  special  faculty,  whose  sole  province  is  to  decide  upon 
personal  acts,  instead  of  designating  all  the  operations  of  the 
mind  in  judging  and  feeling  about  what  is  right  and  wrong. 
One  difficulty  about  this  view  is,  that  it  is  contrary  to  experience. 
What  we  know  is,  that  the  mind  judges  and  feels  in  respect  to 
right  and  wrong,  and  this  is  conscience.  Another  difficulty  is 
that  this  view  is  logically  obliged  to  confine  conscience  to  the 
intellect  or  to  the  feelings,  while  at  the  same  time  it  is  obliged  to 
concede  that  it  is  both  a  judgment  and  a  feeling.  Then  again, 
if  conscience  be  a  special  faculty,  how  can  we  account  for  the 
variety  of  moral  decisions  ?  The  only  way  of  bringing  unity 
into  our  treatment  of  conscience  (and  of  ethics)  is  to  subsume  it 
all  under  the  general  idea  of  right  and  wrong,  (b.)  The  other 
assumption  is  the  atomistic  view  of  morals:  that  which  confines, 
by  force  of  definition,  all  that  is  moral,  to  acts,  and  ultimately  to 
acts  of  the  will.  Of  this  we  shall  have  to  speak  later.  Here  we 
need  only  say,  that  it  appears  to  rest  upon  a  confounding  of  two 
entirely  distinguishable  ideas,  viz.,  those  of  right  (or  wrong)  and 
of  personal  desert.  In  fact  right  is  by  some  actually  defined  as 
that  which  deserves  good;  and  wrong,  as  that  which  deserves 
punishment:  a  defining  by  the  consequences,  and  not  by  the  char- 
acter, of  acts. 

(J3!)  Is  conscience  always  right  in  its  decisions?     Generally, 

I  and  not  universally.     It  is  more  generally  right  than  man  is  in 

his  acts,  and  perhaps  more  generally  right  than  even  reason  is 

in  pronouncing  its  judgments;  but  it  is  not  more  universally 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  187 

right  than  man  or  reason  is.  If  we  assert  that  conscience  is 
universally  right,  we  must  also  assert  that  each  man  having  a 
conscience  is  universally  right.  Also,  so  far  as  conscience  in- 
volves reason,  that  reason  is  universally  right.  If  man  is  not 
infallible,  conscience  is  not.  If  reason  may  be  darkened,  con- 
science may  be.  If  man  having  reason  may  believe  what  is 
false  to  be  true,  he  may  also,  having  conscience,  believe  what 
is  wrong  to  be  right. 
This  further  appears : 

1.  From  the  diversity  in  moral  decisions.     Men  agree  that 
what  is  right  should  be  done:  but  when  we  come  to  specific 
points,  differences  commence.     This  is  so  evident  that  those  who 
advocate  the  universal  correctness  of  conscience  say,  that  in 
these  cases  it  is  the  intellect  that  is  wrong,  and  not  the  con- 
science: the  data  are  wrong  and  not  the  conscience.     But  this 
does  not  help  the  matter.     The  decision  is  a  wrong  one,  and  it 
is  the  decision  of  conscience.     If  it  is  not,  what  is  a  decision  of 
conscience,  and  what  is  the  sphere  of  conscience?     This  attempt 
to  evade  the  difficulty  rests  on  the  assumption  that  conscience  is 
an  ideal  dictator  of  right  and  wrong,  something  apart  from  or 
above  the  man.     Whereas  we  have  maintained  that  it  is  neither 
a  faculty  pronouncing  dictatorially  on  all  actions,  nor  a  faculty 
giving  all  men  right  principles  of  action,  but  that  it  is  simply 
the  mind  judging  and  feeling  in  view  of  right  and  wrong:  it 
includes  all  the  operations  of  the  mind  in  view  of  what  has 
moral  quality,  except  the  desires,  the  choices,  and  determinations 
of  the  will. 

2.  Scripture  speaks  of  the  perverted,  seared,  evil  conscience, 
the  conscience  that  needs  to  be  purified,  etc. 

3.  Conscience,  as  much  as  any  power  or  tendency  of  the 
mind,  may  and  ought  to  be  cultivated,  educated,  enlightened; 
and  if  this  be  so,  it  is  presupposed  that  unless  it  is  cultivated,  it  is 
not  universally  right.     Kant  makes  conscience  to  be  purely  na- 
tive.1    He  says:  "  It  is  not  to  be  attained;  it  is  not  a  duty  to  get 
a  conscience,  but  every  man  has  it  by  nature;"  he  describes  it  as 
44 the  consciousness  of  an  internal  judgment-seat  in  man."     But 

1  Rel.  innerhalb,  etc.,  p.  287. 


188  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

this  is  a  rationalistic  position,  and  is  against  Scripture.  Con- 
science, in  its  primitive  function,  assures  us  that  right  is  ulti- 
mate, and  is  essentially  different  from  wrong.  This  is  its  most 
distinct,  unmistakable,  and  well-nigh  universal  utterance;  but 
it  does  not  tell  us  what  the  right  is,  in  all  its  particulars  and  re- 
lations. Conscience,  in  short,  is  not  of  itself  alone  autonomic.  a 
self-law  above  all  law,  or  rather  dictating  all  law.  This  is  the 
ethical  against  the  theological  position:  it  is  the  rationalistic 
against  the  supernaturalistic.  Here  is  the  turning-point  in 
many  discussions:  in  discussions,  e.  g.,  as  to  the  Scriptures  go- 
ing against  conscience;  the  general  abstract  statement  of  the 
binding  nature  of  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  is 
mixed  up  with  the  question  as  to  what  is  right  or  wrong  in  par- 
ticular cases.  Conscience  tells  us  that  there  is  an  essential  dif- 
ference between  right  and  wrong,  and  does  this  so  certainly 
that  if  the  word  of  God  should  seem  to  reveal  what  we  abso- 
lutely knew  to  be  wrong,  we  could  not  receive  it  and  be  con- 
sistent. But  the  discussion,  so  far  as  Scripture  is  concerned, 
does  not  turn  upon  that  point,  but  rather  upon  particular  cases. 
It  used,  e.  g.,  to  be  frequently  said:  My  conscience  tells  me  that 
the  Scripture,  in  allowing  the  continuance  of  the  relation  of 
master  and  slave,  permits  what  is  wrong,  and  I  cannot  receive 
it  as  the  Word  of  God.  A  man  is  apt  to  say,  in  such  a  case, 
"My  conscience  tells  me  so."  Now  conscience,  as  a  native 
power,  asserts  the  general  distinction  between  right  and  wrong, 
and  the  necessity  of  observing  it,  but  does  not,  as  a  native 
faculty,  decide  upon  particular  cases.  We  do  not  believe  that 
conscience  says  directly,  in  regard  to  any  external  relation,  that 
it  is  necessarily  right  or  wrong.  The  assertion  must  come  back 
to  the  internal  state.  Yet  we  remark: 

4.  Conscience,    when    enlightened   and   educated,    is    right; 

and,  as  is  said  above,  it  is  generally  right  in  respect  to  general 

principles,  though  not  so  generally  as  to  details  and  modes  of 

carrying  the  principles  out.1     The  ideal  conscience  is  of  course 

\      theoretically  always  right. 

1  Yet  these  are  the  cases  in  which  those  who  mistake  their  wills  for  their  con« 
sciences  always  insist  most  strongly. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  189 

NOTE  I. — As  to  the  practical  question  whether  an  individual 
ought  always  to  follow  his  conscience. 

The  well-known  Scholastic  maxim  is,  that  a  wrcng  conscience 
obligates  "per  accidens  et  secundum  quid,"  i.  e.,  as  to  the  matter 
in  hand. 

Several  quite  distinct  points  are  involved  in  the  question. 
(1)  Suppose  a  man  so  blinded  by  sin  as  to  say,  "Evil,  be  thou 
my  good,"  and  to  believe  that  it  is  so,  and  he  appeals  to  mo 
who  knew  it  to  be  wrong:  shall  I  encourage  him  in  following 
his  conscience?  Assuredly  not.  Can  I  tell  him  he  will  be 
without  blame  ?  I  know  that  he  will  be  blameworthy,  if  he  is 
acting  on  a  wrong  basis  and  from  wrong  motives.  So  far  then 
as  the  judgment  is  influenced  by  any  wrong  motive  or  belief,  so 
far  it  is  a  wrong  one,  and  ought  not  to  be  followed,  but  cor- 
rected. (2)  This  is  confirmed  by  experience.  Paul  says,  "  I 
verily  thought  with  myself,  that  I  ought  to  do  many  things 
contrary  to  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth."  But  when  re- 
newed, he  confessed  his  sin  and  guilt  in  doing  that  which  at 
the  time  he  had  allowed.  This  is  the  case  more  or  less  with 
all  sinners  and  all  sin,  and  in  all  Christian  experience.  Before 
conversion  we  approve  what  we  afterwards  condemn,  and  we 
condemn  ourselves  not  for  doing  it  now,  but  for  having  done  it 
then,  and  this  although  at  the  time  we  may  have  felt  justified.  / 
(3)  Yet  there  are  undoubtedly  some  cases  in  which,  while  we 
condemn  the  act,  we  acquit  the  person  of  intentional  blame:  he 
may  have  meant  to  do  right,  but  lacked  the  opportunity  and 
the  knowledge.  Yet  even  here  we  must  still  condemn  the  act: 
it  was  wrong.  (4)  There  is  another  case  under  this  same  head  \ 
— in  the  matter  of  faith.  It  is  said,  "  It  is  no  matter  what  one 
believes,  if  he  is  sincere."  This  is  the  general  practical  form  of 
the  matter:  i.  e.,  the  question  comes  up  in  reference  to  faith 
rather  than  to  moral  duties.  A  person  is  sincere  in  disbelieving, 
and  we  are  asked  to  say  that  he  is  as  well  off  before  God  and 
man,  as  a  believer.  This  demands  consideration  later  under  the 
title  of  Faith,  but  here  we  may  briefly  say:  (a)  Sinceiity  can 
never  be  taken  to  be  the  highest  moral  state.  Sincerity  is  not 
the  chief  of  virtues,  as  seems  to  bB  assumed.  It  is  nothing 


190  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

more  nor  less  than  my  personal  conviction  that  I  am  right  in  a 
given  course  of  action  or  article  of  faith.  But  wholly  above  the 
question  of  my  personal  conviction,  is  the  question  whether  my 
principles  be  really  right  and  my  faith  correct.  Man's  great 
duty  is  not  to  be  sincere,  but  to  be  right :  to  be  so,  and  not  tc 
believe  that  he  is  so.  (b.)  Nowhere  would  this  plea  be  admitted, 
except  in  religion  or  by  religious  indifferentism.  It  is  not  ad- 
mitted in  the  state,  for  holding  a  wrong  opinion  in  politics:  if 
communism,  e.  g.,  be  carried  out  by  men  who  sincerely  hold  it, 
the  state  comes  in  and  checks  them.  If  the  Mormons  are  sin- 
cere in  their  polygamy,  we  say  so  much  the  worse  for  them  and 
their  society,  (c.)  It  is  a  fact  that  men  may  be  sincere  from 
wrong  motives  as  well  as  from  right  ones;  so  that  the  sincerity 
cannot  be  pleaded  as  sufficient,  (d)  It  is  a  fact — a  terrible  fact 
— that  men  may  be  given  over  to  believe  a  lie,  and  be  conscien- 
tious in  iniquity.  But  this  is  no  evidence  of  their  being  blame- 
less, but  of  the  fearful  power  of  iniquity  in  them,  and  of  their 
need  of  being  duly  enlightened,  (e.)  The  position  that  it  is  no 
matter  what  a  man  believes  if  he  is  sincere,  is  inconsistent  with 
the  ground  that  the  Bible  is  the  standard  and  rule  of  duty  and 
life.  In  its  logical  results,  the  position  makes  conscience  and 
reason  supreme,  and  religion  subordinate.  It  puts  ethics  above 
theology,  instead  of  inquiring  for  the  harmony  between  them. 

NOTE  II. — The  possession  of  conscience — meaning  by  it 
what  has  been  described  and  defined — does  not  confer  per- 
sonal righteousness.  It  is  an  essential  condition  of  personal 
righteousness,  but  not  the  righteousness  itself.  Conscience  is 
man  judging  and  feeling  about  what  is  right  and  wrong; 
but  personal  character  is  in  the  affections  and  will.  Some 
Unitarians  maintain  that  a  person  cannot  be  wholly  depraved, 
because  there  remains  a  conscience,  a  sensibility  to  right 
and  wrong.  But  this  may  only  show  the  greatness  of  the 
depravity,  having  conscience  and  yet  ever  disobeying  it. 

§  10.   Of  Han's  Ugliest  Spiritual  Capacities. 
The  outline  of  treatment  [not  carried  out]:   Man  is  made 
for  God,  with  an  implanted  tendency  to  the  eternal  and  infinite. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  191 

'  Thou  hast  set  eternity  in  his  heart."  This  is  not  a  faculty: 
but  Reason,  Conscience,  Affections  and  Will,  in  relation  to  their 
goal.  There  is  an  intuition  of  the  unseen,  a  feeling  of  depend- 
ence, a  sense  of  a  law  above  time  and  the  world,  the  awe  of 
Judgment,  the  longing  for  immortality. 

BEMAEK,  in  the  way  of  transition  to  Chapter  n. 

We  have  thus  far  gone  over  the  main  points  under  the  general  head  in  Chap- 
ter I.  What  is  man  as  a  moral  being?  viz.,  (1)  Man  in  his  most  general  relations; 
(2)  Man  in  his  specific  traits;  (3)  Man  in  his  native  tendencies,  in  respect  to  these 
relations;  (4)  Man  in  his  conscience,  or  his  judgments  and  feelings  in  view  of 
right  and  wrong.  Now,  here  as  (5)  might  be  introduced  the  doctrine  respecting 
the  Will; — but  that  is  so  involved  with  the  inquiry  respecting  the  nature  and  ob- 
ligation of  the  law  of  God,  that  we  shall  first  discuss  this  (which  will  include  the 
question  of  the  nature  of  virtue)  and  then  in  Chapter  III.,  viz.,  Man's  Relations 
to  the  Law,  take  up  the  question  of  the  Will. 


CHAPTER   II. 

WHAT   IS    THE    LAW   OF   GOD:    WHAT   DOES   IT    REQUIRE? 

The  "  Law  of  God  " l  is  used  in  two  different  senses :  some- 
times for  the  positive,  written  law,  given  to  his  people:  as  such 
it  includes  the  ceremonial  laws,  the  precepts  and  prohibitions 
of  the  old  dispensation;  again,  it  is  used  to  signify  the  moral 
law,  that  which  God  has  made  and  given  for  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  his  creatures,  summarily  comprehended  in  the  two 
precepts  of  love  to  God  and  to  our  neighbor.  The  Mosaic  law 
was  given  for  God's  people  then:  from  Christ  the  law  is  given 
in  a  more  perfect  form.  It  is  also  revealed  in  conscience,  the 
natural  law.  This  law,  as  recorded  in  the  Scriptures,  is  the 
norm,  the  rule  for  human  life  and  conduct,  prescribing 
what  man,  as  a  moral  being,  ought  to  be  and  to  do.  It 
rests  in  the  idea  of  rectitude;  this  is  presupposed  in  it, 
not  made  by  it.  It  commands  what  is  right  and  holy. 
It  is  commanded  because  it  is  holy,  and  not  holy  be- 

1  One  of  the  best  treatises  on  the  Law  is  Dr.  John  Smalley's  sermon:  "P:i- 
fection  and  Usefulness  of  the  Divine  Law,'*  in  Brown's  Theol.  Tracts,  vol.  iii. 


192  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

cause  it  is  commanded.  The  majesty  of  the  law  is  in  this, 
its  inherent  rectitude.  The  law  of  God  may  then  be  defined 
as  rectitude  embodied  in  the  form  of  command  (both  in  precept 
and  prohibition).1  In  the  form  of  example,  the  law  is  given 
us  perfectly  in  the  life  of  Christ.  Lactantius  calls  Him  the 
living  and  present  law.  Augustine  says,  "The  law  of  the  Lord 
is  He  who  came  to  fulfil,  not  to  break  the  law."  1  Pet.  ii.  21-25. 

§  1.  Some  general  Statements  as  to  the  Characteristics  of  the 
Law. 

1.  The   law   is   holy,    essentially   good   and   perfect.     It   is 
such  as  being  the  expression  of  the  perfect  will  of  a  holy  and 
wise  Sovereign.     It  is  the  expression  of  the  inherent  rectitude 
of  God,  enforcing  a  like  rectitude  on  the  part  of  his  creatures. 
"Be  ye  holy  for  I  am  holy:"  there  is  no  utterance  which  gives 
us  a  higher  conception  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature  than 
that. 

2.  This  law  is  enforced,  not  merely   by  its   own   inherent 
rectitude,  which  gives  it  a  rational   power,   but   also  by  the 
authority  of  the  lawgiver.     It  is  the  law  of  God,  our  Moral 
Governor,  and  as  such  has  the  force  that  a  person  has  over  and 
above  an  idea.     The  moral  law  of  abstract  ethics  is  moral  duty. 
The  law  of  the  Bible  is  that  same  law,  enforced  by  a  supreme 
Power. 

3.  This  law  is  still  further  enforced  by  its  appropriate  sanc- 
tions: penal  evil  for  transgressions,  and  eternal  life  for  obedience. 
In  each  case  the  award  is  eternal. 

4.  The  law  is  for  the  highest  good  of  each  and  all.     It  com- 
mands what  can  ensure — what  alone  can  do  this — the  highest 
moral  ends  of  the  universe.     It  is  not  only  the  expression  of 
rectitude  and  designed  to  maintain  rectitude,  but  it  has  also  in 
view  the  highest  good. 

5.  In  order  to  ensure  the  highest  good,  the  law  enjoins  per 
feet  holiness  on  the  creature,  nothing  less  and  nothing  else. 
Holiness  is  what  the  law  enjoins,  and  it  is  that  which  is  to  be 

1  Miiller  on  Sin,  i.  58.     Law,  in  the  purity  of  its  idea,  is  "die  Darstellung  del 
eittlichen  Idee  in  der  Form  der  Forderung." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  193 

the  highest  good  of  the  moral  universe.  Some  restrict  the  law 
to  external  legality,  to  the  outward  act,  and  do  not  extend  it 
to  the  inward  state.  Paul  sometimes  does  this,  speaking  as  a 
Jew,  and  in  respect  to  his  bondage  under  the  law;  but  in  his 
Christian  experience  he  recognizes  it  as  spiritual:  this  is  what 
marks  his  conviction  of  sin  and  his  feeling  of  the  need  of  a 
Saviour. 

6.  The  holiness  which  the  law  requires  of  each  man  is  his 
personal  perfection.     It  is  perfection  to  the  extent,  and  the  full 
extent,  of  man's  capacities:  "all  the  heart,  all  the  soul,  all  the 
mind,  all  the  strength,"  Matt.  xxii.  37,  Mark  xii.  28-34     Man's 
natural  ability l  is  to  be  completely  expressed,  his  physical  ability 
to  be  completely  employed  in  fulfilling  the  command. 

7.  The  law,  as  commanding  entire  holiness,  is  always  obli- 
gatory upon  all  moral  beings.     It  cannot  be  satisfied  in  any 
individual  case  with  anything  less  than  entire  conformity.     It 
is  unchangeable  in  its  obligations,  and  is  equally  binding  upon 
all.     It  has  not  one  standard  for  the  heathen,  another  for  the 
Jew,  another  for  the  Christian.     It  does  not  require  of  a  child 
that  he  love  God  with  the  power  of  an  angel,  because  he  has 
not  that  capacity;  but  it  demands  of  a  child  that  he  love  with  all 
his  heart.     Man  insensible  to  the  demands  of  God's  law  is  not 
a  man:  in  the  most  debased  there  are  gleams  of  its  glory. 

NOTE  I. — The  distinction  between  moral  law  and  physi- 
cal. Dr.  Wayland,  in  his  Moral  Science,  gives  a  singular  defi- 
nition of  moral  law.  He  defines  law  generally  as  a  mode  of 
existence  or  order  of  sequence,  and  then  moral  law  as  an 
order  of  sequence  established  between  the  moral  quality  of 
actions  and  their  results.  But  this  is  reversing  all  our  moral 
conceptions,  and  confounding  the  province  of  morals  with 
that  of  physics.  Physical  law  is  undoubtedly  an  order  of  se- 
quence :  the  cause  and  effect  make  the  law,  in  the  sense  that  the 
same  causes  in  the  same  circumstances  will  work  in  the  same 
way.  If  there  be  an  exception  in  this  sphere,  the  physical  law 

1  This  is  the  old  notion  of  natural  ability,  the  reach  to  which  our  powers 
could  extend  if  we  would.  The  modern  sense  of  power  to  the  contrary  is  a  new 
and  derivative  idea. 


194  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  disproved.1  But  law  in  morals  rests  upon  an  entirely  different 
idea:  it  is  that  which  ought  to  be:  it  is  rectitude  commanded:  it 
is  no  less  law,  though  what  it  commands  may  not  be  fact:  it 
would  be  eternally  binding,  though  nobody  conformed  to  it. 
The  moral  law  is  not  the  connection  between  holiness  and 
happiness.  The  consequence  depends  on  the  law,  and  not  the 
law  on  the  consequence. 

Muller's  position.  God's  law  in  relation  to  man  is  this:  God 
has  the  idea  of  man  (end  of  his  being)  and  prescribes  this,  as 
law.  In  man's  formal  freedom  there  is  the  possibility  of  losing 
the  end,  of  not  realizing  the  idea:  hence  the  law  comes  as  the 
objective  norm:  man  needs  it  in  order  to  begin  his  moral  life 
and  to  grow  as  a  moral  being:2  Matt.  v.  17-19,  the  law  and  the 
prophets  must  control  until  the.  end  of  the  economy:  Gen.  ii. 
16,  17,  the  law  was  given  for  the  state  of  rectitude,  and  laws 
were  needed  at  the  beginning;  but  to  the  perfect,  law  (as  ex- 
ternal) ceases:  1  Tim.  i.  9. — Discussion  of  the  German  view,  that 
the  law  ceases.  [Discussion  is  not  given,  only  indicated.]  Not, 
so.  In  nature,  law  determines  things  absolutely:  in  man,  the 
law  is  distinguished  from  his  powers;  he  is  conscious  of  it  as 
demand,  and  must  ever  be,  so  that  it  cannot  "cease."  The  "end" 
of  the  law  is  to  bring  man  from  the  undeveloped  and  indefinite 
relation  to  good,  to  the  full  reception. 

NOTE  II. — As  to  the  order  of  discussion.  The  following  are 
the  chief  points:  (1)  Moral  rectitude — its  abstract  nature ;  (2)  Tbo 
common  principle  of  all  holiness,  in  beings;  (3)  Formal  state- 
ments of  the  same;  (4)  Happiness;  (5)  Love. 

t  §  2.   The  two  fundamental  Objects  or  Ends  of  the  Law  of  God. 

These  are:  (1)  In  respect  to  the  whole  system  of  things.  The 
object  of  the  law  is  to  bring  out,  to  realize,  the  most  perfect  state 
and  order  of  God's  intelligent  moral  universe.  This  is  the  highest 
good:  the  law  has  respect  to  the  highest  good  of  the  whole.  The 
ideal  end  of  the  law  is  to  make  holiness  supreme,  to  secure  gen- 

1  We  hold  a  miracle  to  be  the  effect  of  the  divine  will,  interposing,  and  of 
course  that  does  not  disprove  physical  law. 

8 [Dr.  Bushnell's  speculations  give  a  different  view  The  author,  without  die* 
cussing  these,  intimates  his  entire  dissent  from  them.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  195 

eral  justice  or  the  triumph  of  holiness,  which  is  the  highest  good. 
(2)  In  relation  to  each  individual  moral  being.  Its  object  is,  to 
prescribe  that  rule,  by  following  which,  such  a  state  of  the  uni- 
verse may  be  brought  about.  This  is  the  highest  good  of  the 
individual,  viz.,  that  state  of  mind,  by  which  he  is  adapted  to 
produce,  in  his  measure  and  degree,  the  highest  good  of  the  uni- 
verse. This  is  personal  holiness,  this  is  virtue.  The  law  com- 
mands each  individual  to  have  those  motives  and  that  state  of 
heart,  by  which,  if  every  one  possessed  them,  the  great  end  of 
the  universe  would  be  promoted  to  the  highest  degree. 

We  have  thus  to  inquire :  I.  What  is  the  highest  good  of  the 
universe?  II.  What  is  the  highest  good  of  the  individual? 
What  is  holiness  ?  What  is  virtue  ? 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE     HIGHEST     GOOD. 

We  have  here  the  question  of  the  Summum  Bonum,  the  vexed 
question,  yet  fundamental  in  morals. 

The  highest  good  is  taken  in  a  two-fold  sense:  it  is  taken 
both  objectively  and  subjectively. 

I. — Taken  objectively.  The  highest  good,  thus  taken,  can  only 
be  found  in  that  state  of  things  which  is  the  last  and  highest  re 
suit  of  the  divine  providence,  of  God's  government  of  the  world. 
The  whole  system  of  things,  carried  to  its  highest  degree  of 
perfection,  is  the  highest  good,  objectively  considered.  It  is  the 
final  end,  the  result,  the  ultimate  end  of  the  whole  moral  gov- 
ernment of  God :  it  is  the  general  good,  taken  comprehensively. 

And  that  consists,  as  we  have  seen  (End  of  God  in  Creation), 
in  God's  revelation  or  manifestation  of  himself  to  his  creatures, 
in  the  communication  of  himself  to  them,  so  that  they  find  their 
joy,  their  good  in  Him.  It  is  the  union  between  God  and  his 
creatures  carried  out  so  that  all  things  human  are  conformed  to 
the  divine  plan  and  purpose. 


196  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

The  law  of  God  has  this  for  its  ideal  end;  obedience  to  that 
law  would  bring  about  this  result;  disobedience  interferes  with 
it;  God — man  having  disobeyed — interposes  on  his  part  to  bring 
about  the  same  result  in  another  way  than  that  of  obedience, 
viz.,  by  an  atonement,  but  still  the  general  object  of  the  atone- 
ment is  the  same  as  that  of  the  law,  to  produce  holiness.  The 
law  of  God  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  all  its  bearing  was  in 
respect  to  individuals.  Those  who  define  conscience  as  a  faculty 
which  simply  individualizes,  which  has  respect  only  to  individual 
choices  and  acts,  define  the  law  also  as  having  respect  simply 
to  the  choices  and  acts  of  individuals,  and  ultimately  as  having 
respect  simply  to  acts  of  the  will  (in  the  narrower  sense),  voli- 
tions, which  volitions  are  accompanied  with  full  power  to  the 
contrary  (in  the  modern  sense),  afnd  which  are  deliberate  in  view 
of  all  the  consequences.  But  this  gives  us  conscience  as  having 
to  do  only  with  the  faculties  concerned  in  choice  (as  volition), 
and  the  law  of  God  as  dealing  only  with  the  same.  Thus  orig- 
inal sin  is  excluded;  there  is  no  sin  except  in  such  choices;  there 
is  nothing  save  these  that  comes  under  God's  law.  The  bearing 
of  such  a  view  upon  the  atonement  is  evident.  It  is  granted 
that  Christ  suffered  in  our  stead,  but  not  under  the  law;  because 
the  law  has  to  do  only  with  personal  acts,  and  these  are  not 
transferable;  and  if  that  be  so,  Christ  could  not  suffer  under 
the  law  for  us,  and  so  the  atonement  is  removed  from  the 
law  entirely. 

[What  else  the  author  meant  to  give  under  this  head  appears 
to  have  been  combined  with  the  final  statements  of  the  next 
chapter.] 

II. — The  highest  good  taken  subjectively.  The  consideration 
of  this  leads  us  to  the  general  statements  as  to  the  nature  of  virtue. 
What  is  the  sense  of  the  inquiry  as  to  "  the  nature  of  true  virtue"  ? 

1.  Virtue  is  here  used  in  a  large  sense,  as  the  equivalent  of 
holiness,  and  so  as  to  include  even  the  virtue  of  the  divine  mind.1 
This  however  is  a  bad  form  of  speech;  because  the  word  virtue 

1  Aristotle  denies  moral  virtue  to  God;  L  e.,  God  does  not,  like  man,  act  from 
a  sense  of  duty;  there  is  no  struggle  in  Him  to  an  end  not  yet  realized;  God'a 
perfection  begins  where  man's  ends. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  197 

has  acquired  such  a  secondary  meaning  that  we  can  hardly  speak 
of  God's  virtue.  In  common  speech  the  term  is  used  for  the 
separate  virtues,  but  the  inquiry  here  is  not  for  these,  in  their 
limited  relationships,  but  for  virtue  generally. 

2.  The  inquiry  is  not,  as  it  is  sometimes  said  to  be,  an  inquiry 
as  to  the  abstract  rectitude  of  our  acts.     It  is  not  an  inquiry 
whether  there  be  such  an  idea  as  Right,  and  whether  that  idea 
be  ultimate.     It  is  assumed  in  the  inquiry,  that  what  is  virtuous 
is  right,  that  virtue  is  a  proper  moral  state,  that  it  is  conformable 
to  the  idea  of  rectitude,  that  we  apply  that  idea  to  it.     Some, 
when  anything  more  is  stated  as  to  the  nature  of  virtue  than  that 
it  is  rectitude  or  the  love  of  rectitude,  are  apt  to  say  that  a  util- 
itarian view  is  presented :  but  this  is  a  confounding  of  two  in- 
quiries.    The  questions:   What  is  virtue?  and,  What  is  right 
abstractly  viewed  ?  are  very  different.     The  one  inquiry  is,   Is 
there  an  idea  of  right,  ultimate,  independent  of  all  other  ideas  r 
The  other  is,  What  is  that  in  our  state  and  actions  which  is  right  r 

3.  Hence,  the  inquiry  is  not  as  to  all  that  is  right,  as  to  all 
that  comes  under  that  idea;  but  as  to  what  that  is  in  a  moral 
being  which  is  truly  conformed  to  the  Moral,  what  state  of  the 
affections  in  such  a  being  it  is  which  is  virtuous. 

4.  There  are  a  great  many  minor  separate  virtues :  the  inquiry 
is  not  whether  these  are  right — that  is  presupposed;  but  the  in- 
quiry is  as  to  the  common  subjective  principle  of  what  is  virtuous 
and  holy.     In  other  words,  Can  all  that  is  holy  be  reduced  to 
some  one  common  principle,  and  can  that  principle  be  stated  ? 
That  principle  makes  the  nature  or  essence,  or  as  some  say  the 
foundation,  of  virtue.     The  inquiry  is,  What  is  that  state  of  mind 
or  heart  which  is  common  to  and  expressed  in  all  virtuous  affec- 
tions and  acts  ?     We  are  grateful;  we  love  parents  and  friends; 
we  are  just,  honest;  we  seek  the  welfare  of  our  fellows:  is  there 
any  common  principle  in  all  these  acts  which  makes  them  vir 
tuous,  and  which  alone  makes  them  to  be  virtuous  ? 

5.  It  is  still  further  an  inquiry  after  true  virtue  and  holiness 
How  can  we  distinguish  the  true  from  the  counterfeit  ?     Is  all 
that  men  call  virtuous  really  so  ?     Does  it  come  from  that  which 
is  supremely  virtuous  ?     President  Edwards  was  led  to  write  his 


198  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

essay  on  The  Nature  of  True  Virtue  by  that  which  came  up  in 
his  treatise  on  Sin;  because  the  Arminians  held  that  human  na- 
ture could  not  be  wholly  depraved,  inasmuch  as  it  retains  more 
or  less  of  what  are  commonly  deemed  virtues:  honesty,  kindness, 
temperance,  etc.  His  object  is  to  show,  that  although  these  may 
be  virtues  in  a  minor  sphere,  yet  they  are  not  true  virtues,  be- 
cause they  do  not  contain  the  essence  of  true  virtue. 

The  Theories  on  this  subject  may  be  divided  into  two  classes  • 
(1)  Those  that  measure  and  define  virtue  by  some  formal  and 
external  standard,  that  describe  virtue  in  some  other  way  than 
by  giving  a  common  internal  quality  which  is  found  in  all  vir 
tuous  acts.  A  yard  stick  can  measure  cotton,  woolen,  or  silk, 
but  it  does  not  tell  us  anything  about  the  cotton  itself  or  the 
silk  itself.  No  more  from  the  formal  theories  of  virtue  can  we 
get  anything  as  to  its  distinctive  nature.  (2)  Those  that  attempt 
to  define  virtue  by  something  contained  in  the  virtuous  acts 
themselves;  by  some  quality  or  qualities  of  the  acts  themselves. 
These  are  the  only  theories  that  attempt  to  grasp  or  answer  th<* 
inquiry.  This  class  is  subdivided  into  (a.)  The  Happiness 
Theories  and  (b.)  The  Tlieories  wliicli  put  Virtue  in  Holy  Love. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    FORMAL   THEORIES    OF   THE   NATURE    OF   VIRTUE. 

§  1.    Virtue  is  Acting  according  to  the  Fitness  of  Things. 

This  is  a  strictly  formal  definition.  It  was  employed  by  many 
of  the  Independent  Moralists  of  England,  Cudworth,  etc.  It  has 
its  value  in  contrast  with  the  theory  of  mere  Utility,  which  is, 
acting  for  present  good  or  happiness.  A  virtuous  man  will  act 
according  to  the  fitness  of  things,  but  that  does  not  tell  us  in 
what  his  virtue  consists.  We  have  here  a  scaffolding  descrip- 
tion of  virtue.  Animals,  even  machines,  act  according  to  the 
fitness  of  things,  as  a  horse,  a  locomotive,  going  safely  on  the 
right  track.  Many  of  our  own  actions  accord  with  this  definition 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  199 

which  are  not  virtuous.  If,  to  relieve  this  difficulty,  it  be  said, 
Virtue  is  a  voluntary  acting  according  to  the  moral  fitness  of 
things,  then  in  the  word  moral  the  whole  question  appears  and 
we  have  to  ask,  what  is  the  moral  fitness  of  things  ? 

§  2.    Virtue  is  that  which  promotes  the  great  End  of  our  Being. 

Virtue  undoubtedly  does  this,  but  the  defect  of  the  answer  is, 
that  it  does  not  answer  two  other  questions:  (1)  What  is  the  end 
of  our  being  ?  (2)  What  is  that  in  virtue  which  promotes  or 
produces  the  end  of  our  being? 

§  3.    Virtue  is  Acting  in  conformity  with  the  Relations  of  Things. 

This  is  Dr.  Way  land's  view  in  part.  There  are  certain  re- 
lations, he  says,  in  view  of  which  there  arises  a  feeling  of  moral 
obligation:  in  view  of  the  relation,  e.  g.,  of  parent  and  child,  there 
is  a  feeling  of  obligation  to  have  certain  emotions,  to  do  certain 
things;  in  view  of  the  relation  of  the  creature  to  God,  arises  a 
feeling  of  obligation  to  love  and  obedience.  An  act  performed 
in  obedience  to  the  obligation  to  man,  is  virtuous, — to  the  obli- 
gation to  God,  is  pious.1 

1.  If  a   man   feel  as  he  ought  and  act  as  he  ought,  he  is 
undoubtedly  virtuous,  and  all  his  acts  take  in  and  include  his 
virtuous  acts.     Everything  finite  is  in  relations,  and  if  we  act 
in  accordance  with  all  of  them,  we  are  virtuous. 

2.  But  there  are  some  relations  which  a  man  may  act  in 
conformity  with,   without   being   virtuous,   e.   g.,   the   physical 
relations.     The  definition  is  too  wide. 

3.  Then  the  conformity  cannot  be  to   all  relations,  but   to 
some  particular  kind  of  relations.     Therefore  there  is  a  question 
behind  that  of  relations:  What  particular  relations  are  those 
which  call  out  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  ?     Here  is  the  in- 
sufficiency of  the  theory.     In  view  of  certain  relations  we  have 
the  feeling  of  moral  obligation;  but  what  peculiarity  is  there  in 
these  relations  which  gives  rise  to  this  feeling  in  us,  when  we 

1  Moral  Science,  pp.  44-48,  75-77.  Cudworth  and  Clarke  hold  that  virtue  is  to 
act  conformably  to  relations.  The  "fitness  of  things"  theory  runs  into  this. 
They  supposed  the  general  power  of  judging  of  truth  and  falsehood  to  be  the 
power  which  perceives  these  relations:  Way  land,  with  the  later  Scottish  School, 
supposes  a  distinct  power,  viz.,  Conscience. 


200  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

do  not  have  it  in  other  relations  ?  To  get  at  the  moral  element, 
we  must  go  Jbehind  the  mere  statement  that  we  are  under 
certain  relations. 

4.  Even  supposing  that  we  have  ascertained  what  these  re- 
lations are,  there  remains  another  inquiry:  Virtue,  we  are  told, 
is  acting  in  conformity  with,  or  feeling  as  we  ought  in  view  of, 
certain  relations ;  what  then  are  those  motives  and  feelings  which 
are  such  "as  we  ought"  to  have,  such  as  constitute  the  true 
conformity  with  the  relations  ? 

§  4  Is  it  any  better  explanation  of  virtue  to  say  that  it  is 
Acting  in  Conformity  to  the  Will  of  God,  or  that  the  will  of  God 
constitutes  virtue  ?  There  are  four  senses  in  which  this  theory 
is  held: 

(1)  God  is  our  superior,  our  creator,  and  as  such  He  has  a 
perfect  right  to  us  and  to  our  services.  His  will  is  our  highest 
law.  Our  relation  to  God  as  creatures  draws  this  after  it,  and 
this  is  the  ultimate  thing  in  morals:  it  would  settle,  e.  g.,  the 
questions  raised  as  to  the  course  of  the  Israelites  with  the  Ca- 
naanites,  etc.  Virtue  is  obedience  to  the  will  of  a  sovereign. 
(2)  God's  revealed  will  is  law  to  us:  and  acting  according  to  that 
is  virtue.  (3)  God's  will  creates,  makes  virtue  and  its  opposite. 
Virtue  exists  by  an  act  of  the  divine  will  as  much  as  the  world 
does,  and  so  that  God  could  make  it  different  if  He  chose. 
(4)  God's  will  is  taken  for  the  expression  of  his  whole  nature, 
so  that  what  He  declares  or  reveals,  the  expression  of  his  will, 
is  the  expression  of  what  seems  to  Him  wise  and  good.  (This 
fourth  view  is  closely  connected  with  the  second,  though  it  is 
well  to  distinguish  them.)  And  our  action  in  conformity  with 
that  will  (thus  understood)  is  virtue. 

As  to  the  first  position :  We  grant  that  such  is  our  relation  to 
God,  our  natural  relation,  that  it  does  lay  a  foundation  for 
obedience.  Moral  obligation  is  inseparably  connected  with  our 
relation  to  God.  This  is  indisputable.  Still  the  mere  perception 
of  power,  even  of  omnipotence,  the  mere  relation  of  authority, 
does  not  constitute  the  moral  relation  which  exists  between  ua 
and  God.  God  being  ivhat  He  is,  it  is  our  duty  to  obey  Kim 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  201 

But  suppose  an  omnipotent  being  who  is  malevolent,  would  it 
be  virtue  to  obey  him?  The  very  supposition  shocks  the  mind: 
but  that  only  shows  that  we  connect  with  the  idea  of  God's  power 
his  other  attributes.  Without  these  we  could  not  feel  moral  ob- 
ligation. Mere  omnipotence  may  control  us  in  a  physical  sense, 
and  may  constrain  us  to  the  performance  of  certain  acts,  but  it 
can  never  call  forth  a  moral  response.  That  can  be  evoked  only 
by  what  is  moral. 

As  to  the  second  position :  It  is  indisputable  that  God's  re- 
vealed will  is  law  to  us.  If  God  commands  me  to  do  anything, 
I  arn  bound  to  do  it.  God's  revealed  will  is  the  rule  of  action  - 
wherever  it  is  revealed,  there  it  is  binding.  But  this  does  not 
reach  the  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of  virtue,  for  two  reasons: 

(1)  God's  revealed  will  commands  us  to  be  holy,  to  be  virtuous. 
That  is  a  part  of  the  revealed  will  itself,  it  is  what  the  command- 
ment has  respect  to.     If  we  obey,  of  course  we  are  virtuous,  but 
it  is  not  the  command  which  makes  the  virtue.     The  inquiry 
still  remains,  What  is  that  holiness  which  is  thus  commanded? 

(2)  And  why  do  we  yield  such  unhesitating  assent?     It  is  only 
from  our  conviction  that  God's  revealed  will  must  be  holy  and 
altogether  right.     Take,  for  example,  the  instance  of  the  Israel- 
ites commanded  to  destroy  the  Canaanites.     They  were  bound 
to  obey,   although  they  might  not  see  all  the  reasons  for  the 
justice  of  the  command.     Why  were  they  bound  to  obey  ?     Be- 
cause God  commanded.     But  was  it  because  God  commanded  as 
a  sovereign,  or  as  a  holy  sovereign  ?     It  was  because  of  their 
conviction  that   He  could  not  command  what  was  not  holy. 

(3)  This  second  position  really  means:  God's  revealed  will  is  a 
perfect  expression  of  a  perfect  will.     God  gives  a  law :  in  doing 
this,  (a.)  He  appeals  to  our  moral  nature,  the  sense  of  right  and 
duty  in  us.     This  is  before  the  command,  and  necessary  to  its 
binding  force.     And  (£>.)   We  feel  that  He  knows  best  in  all 
cases  where  He  gives  a  positive  command.     It  does  not  follow, 
that  if  we  do  not  see  the  reason,  or  the  full  reason,  of  a  com- 
mand, we  are  not  bound  to  obey.     But  in  order  to  feel  the  obli« 
gation,  we  must  have  the  conviction  that  the  command  is  right 
If  we  have  not  this,  what  is  our  obedience  worth? 


202  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

As  to  the  third  position :  God  creates  virtue  and  vice,  by  the 
act  of  his  will,  as  such, — we  do  not  believe  that  any  one  can  hold 
this.  Could  God  make  benevolence  to  be  sinful,  and  hatred  to 
be  right?  If  any  one  should  pretend  to  a  revelation  which  con- 
tained such  things,  we  should  instinctively  reject  it.  Still  further, 
when  carried  out,  this  theory  must  deny  that  God  has  any  es- 
sential holiness.  There  must  have  been  a  time  when  He  was 
not  holy.  He  made  holiness  by  an  act  of  will,  and  then  He  be- 
came holy. 

When  we  say  that  it  is  the  essential  holiness  of  God  that 
makes  virtue,  some  object  that  we  are  putting  something  behind 
God;  but  this  is  not  the  fact;  we  are  only  putting  something  in 
God.  We  do  not  say  that  virtue  was  before  God.  Before  has  no 
sense  here.  But  we  say,  holiness  is  as  eternal  as  God,  and 
necessary  to  the  very  conception  of  His  nature.  God,  if  He 
were  not  holy  from  the  beginning,  would  not  be  God,  any  more 
than  if  He  were  not  omniscient. 

It  is  further  said  that  God  has  created  us,  our  minds  and 
moral  natures,  our  perception  of  virtue  and  feeling  of  obligation, 
and  in  this  sense  God  is  the  author  of  virtue,  in  this  sense  virtue 
is  dependent  on  the  will  of  God.  This  is  undoubtedly  true.  But 
in  giving  us  such  a  feeling  in  regard  to  virtue,  such  perceptions 
of  right,  and  appealing  to  these  always  as  ultimate;  in  address- 
ing to  us  his  commands  and  making  us  feel  the  value  of  virtue 
for  its  own  sake;  in  making  us  so  that  we  can  think  of  virtue  and 
right  without  thinking  of  his  commands;  in  all  this,  He  shows 
that  the  independence  of  virtue  is  recognized  by  Him.  He  cre- 
ated us  capable  of  perceiving  virtue,  but  that  does  not  include 
the  position  that  He  created  virtue.  He  made  us  capable  of  per- 
ceiving mathematical  truth,  but  He  did  not  make  the  truth  that 
the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles:  that 
truth  is  eternal. 

As  to  the  fourth  position:  This  may  be  accepted,  in  the  sense 
that  all  truth,  all  relations,  all  ideas,  ultimately  inhere  in  the 
divine  mind.  All  that  is  wise  and  good  appears  to  Him  to  be 
such;  all  that  is  true  and  right  is  forever  apprehended  by  Him 
as  such ;  and  if  his  will  is  taken  as  the  expression  of  his  whola 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  203 

nature,  of  course  his  will  and  what  is  right,  or  virtue,  will 
coincide.  Yet,  after  all,  this  is  not  the  best  form  of  statement  in 
morals  any  more  than  in  mathematics.  Nothing  is  added  to  an 
axiom  by  saying  that  it  is  the  will  of  God;  e.  g.,  by  saying, 
Things  which  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to  one 
another,  and  this  is  the  will  of  God,  because  all  truth  inheres 
in  the  divine  mind.  Eight  is  the  will  of  God,  but  is  not  the 
product  of  the  will  of  God.  In  order  to  have  an  idea  of  right, 
we  do  not  need  to  have  an  idea  of  it  as  first  coming  from  God. 
It  adds  immense  practical  force  to  the  right  that  it  is  the  will 
of  the  holy  God,  but  we  do  not  need  this  consideration  to  have 
the  idea  of  right. 

And  after  all  these  statements  and  qualifications,  allowing 
them  their  utmost  weight,  they  do  not  reach  to  the  real  point 
of  the  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of  virtue,  which  is,  not,  what  is 
virtue  conformed  to  ?  not,  what  is  the  source  of  virtue  ?  but, 
what  is  the  essence  of  virtue,  or  what  is  the  common,  subjective 
quality  in  all  virtuous  acts  ? 

§  5.  Kant's  Theory. 

It  is  taken  from  the  New  Testament  rule:  "Do  unto  others 
as  ye  would  that  they  should  do  unto  you."  It  is:  "Act  so  that 
the  free  use  of  thy  will  may  consist  with  the  freedom  of  every- 
one, according  to  a  universal  law."  Fichte's  is  somewhat  sim- 
ilar :  "  Let  each  restrict  his  freedom  by  the  idea  of  the  freedom 
of  others." 

This,  again,  is  a  merely  formal  rule  for  virtuous  action,  good  for 
outward  actions,  but  not  telling  us  anything  of  the  principle  of 
virtue  itself.  What  is  that  universal  law,  according  to  which  we 
must  act  and  use  our  freedom  ?  What  does  it  demand  ?  What 
is  the  state  of  mind  which  it  demands  ?  This  is  a  formula,  but 
not  a  formula  into  which  all  our  acts  can  be  put,  and  it  does 
not  give  the  internal  quality  of  the  acts  themselves. 

§  6.  Dr.  Hiclotts  Theory. 

'•  When  the  man  sees  himself  to  be  just  what  the  spiritual 
excellency  of  his  being  demands  that  he  should  be,  he  has,  in 


204  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

the  contemplation  of  this  worthiness,  at  once  his  virtue  and  his 
reward."  "  This  worthiness  is  no  revelation  from  without,  but 
a  necessary  truth  seen  in  the  spirituality  of  his  own  being  from 
within." 1 

This,  again,  is  one  of  the  formal  theories  of  virtue;  it  gives  us 
an  account  of  it,  but  not  the  thing  itself.  What  is  it  which 
spiritual  excellency  demands  that  a  man  should  be?  In  spirit- 
ual excellency  is  virtue,  is  approbation,  is  happiness:  Yes,  but 
what  is  spiritual  excellency  ?  And  what  is  the  conformity  to  it 
which  is  virtue  ?  The  whole  inquiry  is  still  before  us. 

REMARK  on  all  the  formal  theories': — The  common  fault  of  them 
all  is  that  they  give  us  a  description,  a  general  account,  of  virtue, 
but  do  not  tell  us  what  it  is  in  itself.  They  define  it  by  some 
standard  or  rule,  but  they  do  not  give  us  any  principle  of  it,  any- 
thing inhering  in  it,  any  common  quality.  If  a  man  has  it,  he 
might  from  these  descriptions  give  a  pretty  good  guess  as  to 
what  was  meant  by  it,  and  hence  the  plausibility  of  such  theo- 
ries. They  give  us  some  characteristics  and  conceptions  of 
virtue,  but  not  the  concrete  conception  of  holiness  itself.  De- 
fining it  thus  is  like  defining  body  as  that  which  occupies 
space,  instead  of  by  its  inseparable  qualities.  It  is  giving  an 
external  objective  measure  of  virtue,  but  not  its  internal,  real 
characteristics. 

But  the  class  of  theories  we  are  next  to  consider,  though 
widely  differing  among  themselves,  have  the  common  charac- 
teristic of  attempting  to  answer  the  question:  What  is  virtue? 
and  to  do  this  by  some  supposed  common,  subjective  quality  of 
all  that  can  be  called  virtuous. 

Of  these  theories  there  are  two  classes:  those  which  make 
HAPPINESS,  in  some  form,  objective  or  subjective,  to  be  the  spring 
and  end  of  all  virtue;  and  those  which  do  not,  placing  it  in 
HOLT  LOVE. 

i  The  Westm.  Bev.,  Oct.  1853,  says,  this  reads  like  Cudworth,  but  in  truth  is 
more  like  Dr.  T.  Brown's  "moral  approbation." 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.          205 

CHAPTER   V. 

THE     HAPPINESS     THEORIES. 

PRELIMINARY  INQUIRY:  What  is  happiness? 

The  most  general  notion  of  happiness  is  that  of  the  pleasure 
or  gratification  of  sentient  beings,  attending  or  consequent  upon 
their  activity.  All  feeling  in  the  line  of  law  confers  happiness.  It 
is  a  simple  term,  expressive  of  a  fact  known  to  all  sentient  beings 
in  their  measure  and  degree.  It  is  found  in  animal  life.  It  is 
found  in  the  exercise  of  all  our  powers,  whether  intellectual, 
sensitive,  affective,  or  voluntary.  Future  happiness  is  such  pleas- 
ure or  gratification  expected  or  destined  for  any  in  the  future; 
present  happiness  is  the  gratification  now  enjoyed.  Happiness 
is  contrasted  with  conditions  of  pain,  suffering,  want,  sickness, 
etc.,  where  the  exercise  of  our  powers,  whether  bodily  or  mental, 
is  a  source  of  suffering. 

Self-love  ("self-regarding  affections,"  Bentham)  is  defined 
sometimes  as  the  desire  of  happiness,  the  instinctive  desire  of 
that  gratification  which  attends  the  exercise  of  all  our  powers : 
the  highest  happiness  being  found  in  the  highest  exercise  of  em- 
powers on  their  highest  objects. 

Since  happiness  is  ultimate,  all  we  can  do  is  to  describe  it. 
It  is  a  simple  psychological  fact  about  the  exercise  of  the  powers 
of  sentient  beings ;  in  the  exercise  of  them  they  are  happy,  and 
happy  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  the  exercise  and  the  worthi- 
ness of  the  objects.  But  still,  notwithstanding  this  difference 
of  degree,  all  the  exercises  have  a  common  element,  viz.,  hap- 
piness, and  this  is  a  real  good,  it  is  the  only  real  good,  it  is  that 
which  alone  is  sought  for  its  own  sake.  The  highest  happiness 
contains  the  same  elements  as  the  lower  forms :  its  differentia  is 
in  its  objects.1 

1  The  noblest  view  of  such  happiness,  as  the  perfect  good,  is  given  by  Aristotle: 
"An  energy  of  the  soul,  or  the  powers  of  the  soul  exerted  according  to  that  vir- 
tue or  excellence  which  mostly  consummates  or  perfects  them"  (Hampden's  par- 
aphrase). Further,  Nic.  Eth.  Bk.  x.  4:  "It  is  doubtful  whet  her  we  strive  for  happiness 
for  the  sake  of  life,  or  for  life  for  the  sake  of  happiness ;  both  are  inseparable. ' '  This, 
from  a  heathen,  is  a  much  higher  view  of  Utility  (if  indeed  it  can  be  considered 
as  an  Utilitarian  view)  than  is  found  in  some  Christian  writers. 


206  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Of  these  happiness  theories,  there  are  several  distinct  forma 
of  which  we  will  first  speak  separately,  and  then  comment  on, 
in  reference  to  their  fundamental  common  assumption,  viz.,  that 
happiness  is  the  only  good,  is  the  ultimate  object  of  desire  and 
action.  The  question  is,  Can  all  virtue  be  resolved  into  happi- 
ness, in  some  form  ? 

There  are  three  chief  forms  of  the  happiness  scheme: 

1.  The  selfish  scheme  of  Paley,  which  makes  the  seeking'  of 
our  own  future  happiness  (or  avoiding  misery)  to  be  virtue. 

2.  The  objective1  happiness  scheme,  making  virtue  to  consist 
in  a  tendency  to  promote  the  general  happiness,  or  in  the  love 
of  the  general  happiness  (happiness,  not  good).     Not  our  own 
future  happiness,  as  Paley  has  it,  but  the  general  happiness. 

3.  The  subjective  happiness  scheme  (as  distinguished  from  the 
selfish  scheme),  or  the  self-love  scheme,  which  is  perhaps  a  union 
of  the  two  above,  the  substance  of  which  may  be  thus  expressed: 
My  happiness  in  the  general  happiness  is  the  spring  and  sum  of 
virtue.     Logically,  both  the  others  are  to  be  resolved  into  this. 

There  might  be  added : 

4.  A  scheme  which  defines  benevolence,  as  primarily  a  love 
to  general  happiness,  and  ultimately  having  regard  to  it,  which 
has  been  defended  as  Edwardean. 

5.  Perhaps  also  the  theory  of  President  Finney:  Virtue  is 
the  choice  of  the  greatest  happiness  of  God  and  the  universe. 

§  1.   The  Selfish  Scheme.     The  Ethics  of  Paley. 

"Virtue  is  doing  good  to  mankind  in  obedience  to  the  will 
of  God  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness."  According  to 
this  definition,  the  will  of  God  is  the  rule,  the  good  of  mankind 
is  the  subject,  and  everlasting  happiness  is  the  motive,  of  human 
virtue.  Take  in  connection  with  this  Paley's  statement  about 
happiness,  viz.,  "Pleasures  differ  in  nothing  but  in  continuance 
and  in  intensity,"  and  we  have  a  moral  system  about  as  bad  as 

1  John  Maclaurin,  Philos.  Inq.  into  Nat.  of  Happiness  (written  before  1736, 
first  printed  in  1773  in  Goold's  Edition,  ii.  491),  makes  the  distinction  of  subjective 
and  objective  thus:  Happiness  must  have  an  objective  cause  and  a  subjective  ex- 
perience. God  is  the  sufficient  objective  cause  of  the  highest  happiness  to  man; 
man  is  formed  for  God's  glory,  etc. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  207 

one  can  be, — inexcusable  even  in  a  heathen.  It  does  not  even 
recognize  duties  towards  God:  the  doing  good  to  mankind  is  all 
that  it  takes  into  view  as  the  field  of  virtuous  action. 

But  particularly  and  specifically,  reduced  to  a  proposition, 
the  subjective  motive  of  virtue  is  said  to  be  one's  own  future 
happiness,  seeking  our  own  personal  future  good. 

Against  this  lie  considerations  such  as  the  following: 

1.  Common  experience  tells  us  that,  when  we  do  not  think 
of  our  happiness,  we  are  the  happiest;  e.  g.,  in  relieving  misery. 
The  idea  of  our  own  happiness  is  an  intrusion,  in  religion  and 
benevolence  for  instance. 

2.  Mackintosh  says:  Upon  this  theory,  unless  we  are  think- 
ing of  our  everlasting  happiness,  unless  we  have  that  as  a  direct 
motive  before  us  in  all  that  we  do,  we  cannot  be  virtuous.     We 
should  be — what,   then?  vicious?      Vice   must  consist  in   not 
seeking  our  happiness.     When  a  man  thinks  only  of  doing  good, 
he  is  sinful. 

3.  The  theory  allows  no  difference  in  the  motives  of  sinful 
and  holy  action.     Both  have  regard  more  or  less  to  the  happiness, 
real  or  supposed,  of  the  agent.     There  is  no  rule.     All  men  act 
from  self-interest;  all  men  are  so  far  forth  virtuous.     All  that  ia 
left  is  to  resolve  virtue  into  the  arbitrary  will  of  God,  as  Paley  does. 

4  Acting  in  view  of  future  everlasting  rewards  and  punish- 
ments is  undoubtedly  acting  under  a  right  motive,  a  motive 
which  has  its  important  place.  But  why  are  such  promises  and 
threatenings  made?  and  to  what?  They  are  given  to  attract 
and  deter,  to  virtue  and/row  vice:  not  to  make  either  virtue  or 
vice.  Motives  in  respect  to  virtue  and  vice  do  not  constitute  the 
motives  of  either  The  consequences,  not  the  nature  of  our  acts 
are  here  shown. — Exhibition  of  the  future  consequences  of  action 
serves  to  arouse  those  who  cannot  yet  feel  any  higher  motive. 

In  sum,  the  motive  of  self-interest  has  its  place  in  a  moral 
system,  but  it  is  not  that  which  makes  virtue  to  be  virtue. 

§  2.    Virtue  consists  in  the  Tendency  to  the  greatest  Happiness. 
The  advocates  of  this  scheme  say  that  virtue  and  tendency 
to  happiness  are  the  same  thing.     If  this  be  so,  then  two  things 


208  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

follow:  (1)  Everything  which  promotes  the  general  happiness  ia 
virtuous;  all  that  is  useful  is  virtuous,  because  virtue  is  the  ten- 
dency to  promote  the  general  happiness.  (2)  Nothing  can  be 
declared  to  be  virtuous  until  we  can  see  or  prove  in  some  way 
that  it  promotes  the  general  happiness.1 

But  we  must  deny  both  of  these  positions. 

1.  Not  all  that  in  any  way  promotes  the  happiness  of  men  is 
virtuous.  Many  things  are  useful,  are  as  useful  as  they  can  be, 
promote  happiness,  promote  as  much  happiness  as  they  can, 
which  nobody  thinks  of  calling  virtuous.  Many  animals  are 
useful:  what  they  do  tends  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  com- 
munity. Steam  engines  are  useful;  vegetables  are  useful;  our 
natural  instincts,  our  involuntary  affections,  are  all  useful:  they 
tend  to  promote  happiness  and  the  highest  happiness  which 
from  their  nature  they  can  do.2  The  tendency  to  happiness  is 
the  same  in  the  unintelligent  and  the  intelligent  being:  this  term 
remains  the  same:  so  that  it  cannot  be  this  which  makes  the 
difference — confessed  on  all  sides — between  a  virtuous  act  and 
one  which  has  no  moral  character.  This  forces  us  to  the  con- 
clusion than  an  act  of  man  is  virtuous,  not  because  it  has  such 
and  such  a  tendency,  but — for  some  other  reason,  which  reason 
is  the  object  of  our  inquiry. 

1  Wayland  discusses  the  question  on  the  supposition  that  virtue  and  the  ten- 
dency to  happiness  are  different  things.     His  opponents  insist  that  they  are  the 
same  thing:  that  if  we  want  to  define  virtue  we  must  say  that  it  is  the  tendency  to 
promote  happiness.     Christian  Spect.,  Dec.  1835,  p.  605:  "The  ideas  (L  e.,  of 
right  and  productiveness  of  happiness)  are  identical,  or  rather  one  is  explanatory 
of  the  other."     "The  tendency  to  produce  the  greatest  amount  of  happiness  is 
what  makes  or  constitutes  a  thing  right."     Dr.  Dwight  is  quoted  to  the  effect 
that  the  tendency  to  produce  happiness  is  "what  constitutes  the  value  or  excel- 
lency (or  as  Dr.  D.  uses  the  word — wrongly— the  "  foundation  ")  of  virtue." 

2  Dr.  Dwight  says  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  answer  this  objection.     But  why 
not?    He  says:  "  A  smattering  philosophy  knows  that  voluntarin ess  is  necessary 
to  virtue."     Here  we  have  a  new  statement.     It  is  not  usefulness  alone,  but  vol- 
untary usefulness,  which  constitutes  virtue.    But  here  we  must  ask,  if  the  ten- 
dency  of  a  thing  being  useful  does  not  make  it  happiness,  how  does  its  becoming 
voluntary  give  it  a  new  character?    My  choosing  a  thing  does  not  make  it  right 
or  wrong;  it  simply  brings  in  accountability.     The  statement  will  be  reduced  to 
this:  Tendency  to  happiness  in  a  being  not  moral,  is  not  moral:  but  in  a  being 
who  is  moral,  it  is  moral.     This  is  acknowledging  a  difference  in  the  nature  of  the 
act:  it  is  tho  moral  element  in  the  nature  of  the  act  which  we  are  inquiring  for, 
and  we  must  go  somewhere  else  than  to  the  tendency  to  happiness  to  find  it. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  209 

2.  If  that  which  makes  the  essence  of  virtue  be  a  tendency 
to  happiness,  we  cannot  say  that  anything  is  virtuous  until  we 
see  that  it  has  this  tendency.     We  of  course  do  not  deny  that 
we  can  see  that  virtuous  acts  have  this  tendency  to  a  very  great 
extent;  but  the  question  is,  whether  our  judgments  that  such 
and  such  things  are  right  are  dependent  on  our  thus  seeing. 
Before  I  can  say  that  it  is  right  to  speak  the  truth,  must  I  see 
that  my  so  doing  will  produce  the  greatest  amount  of  happiness? 
Love  to  God  will  undoubtedly  tend  to  promote  the  greatest  hap- 
piness: but  is  the  seeing  of  that  necessary  to  the  judgment  that 
the  love  of  God  is  right.1 

3.  This  position  confounds  two  things  which  are  entirely 
distinct:  the  nature  of  a  thing  with  its  tendencies,  the  essence 
with  the  manifestation.     These  are  everywhere  else  kept  dis- 
tinct.    The  tendency  of  sin  is  to  misery,  but  misery  does  not 
tell  us  what  sin  is:  it  shows  us  what  it  deserves,  but  does  not 
define  its  nature.     The  tendency  of  all  matter  is  to  gravitate, 
but  gravitation  does  not  describe  the  nature  or  essence  of  matter. 
That  is  only  one  of  its  modes  of  manifestation.     So  the  tendency 
of  all  virtue  may  be,  and  doubtless  is,  to  promote  the  greatest 
good,  the  highest  happiness  of  the  universe:  but  this  very  ten- 
dency is  a  result  of  its  excellent  nature,  and  does  not  constitute 
that  nature.     Such  is  the  inherent  excellency  of  a  virtuous  dis- 
position that  it  makes  him  who  has  it  most  happy,  that  it  con- 
tributes most  of  all  to  the  general  happiness:  but  this  tendency 
to  happiness  does  not  describe  the  act  as  it  is  in  itself.     The 
nature  and  the  tendencies  are  different.     We  may  judge  of  the 
nature,  to  some  extent,  by  the  tendencies,  but  we  cannot,  with- 
out gross  confusion,  identify  them. 

'  Dr.  Wayland  here  is  explicit  and  right.  When  Utilitarians  assert  that  virtue 
is  the  tendency  to  general  happiness,  they  say  that  their  meaning  is  not,  that  we 
must  see  beforehand  this  tendency  (as  a  distinct  motive)  in  order  to  the  virtue  of 
the  act:  but,  that  upon  inspecting  every  virtuous  act,  we  find  in  it  (afterwards) 
this  tendency;  i.  e.,  the  perception  of  such  utility  is  not  necessary  to  the  subjective 
virtue  of  the  act,  but  we  must  see  (objectively)  this  tendency  to  such  utility  before 
we  can  pronounce,  judge,  any  act  to  be  virtuous.  Examination  of  Utilitarianism, 
by  the  late  John  Grote,  Lond.  1870.  Benthana,  the  extreme  Utilitarian:  Murder 
is  wrong  "because  (1)  the  evil  to  the  murdered  man  far  outweighs  the  pleasure 
reaped  by  the  murderer,"  etc.  "Quantity  of  pleasure  being  equal,  push-pin  is  as 
good  as  poetry."  His  Deontology  repudiated  by  MilL  See  West.  Kev.,  Jan.  1871, 
defending  Mill. 


CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

4.  This  doctrine  is  further  exposed  to  the  difficulty  which 
comes  from  the  following  consideration:  Its  advocates  say 
that  virtue  is  the  best  thing,  and  that  virtue  is  tendency 
to  happiness.  Then  the  tendency  to  happiness  is  better  than 
happiness  itself. 

It  is  allowed  on  all  sides  that  virtue  does  tend  to  produce 
the  highest  happiness:  the  position  here  taken  is  that  virtue 
cannot  be  resolved  into  a  tendency  to  happiness. 

§  3.  Subjective  Happiness,  or  Self -Love  Scheme. 

This  is  a  scheme  of  more  refined  character  than  those  which 
have  been  considered,  and  on  that  account  is  often  misunder- 
stood. Of  the  various  happiness  schemes,  we  regard  this  as 
the  only  consistent  one.  It  resolves  all  moral  action  into  the 
pleasure  or  happiness  which  is  found  in  such  action.1  The 
system  allows  that  benevolent  action  is  the  highest  good,  but  it 
gays  the  reason  why  any  one  is  benevolent  is  for  the  pleasure 
there  is  in  it — the  happiness  in  it.  Our  highest  pleasure  is  in 
loving  God,  and  the  reason  why  we  love  God  is  because  our 
highest  happiness  is  found  in  it.  So  our  highest  pleasure  is  in 
doing  good,  and  this  is  the  ultimate  motive  for  doing  good. 
There  is  happiness  in  obeying  conscience,  and  the  reason  why  we 
obey  is  the  happiness  which  is  in  it.  This  is  a  very  different 
theory  from  the  previous  one:  instead  of  making  happiness  objec- 
tive, and  virtue  a  tendency  to  promote  that  happiness,  it  puts  the 
virtue  in  the  happiness  itself,  as  subjective;  yet  one  will  hardly 

1  This  scheme  is  most  distinctly  advocated  by  the  late  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor.  He 
began  the  discussion  in  an  essay  on  Eegeneration  in  the  Christian  Spectator, 
1835.  He  laid  hold  of  the  instinctive  desire  for  happiness  as  the  lever  by  which 
R  sinner  might  be  renewed  with  what  is  in  him,  and  he  professed  to  start  from 
the  position  or  ground  of  Dr.  D wight,  the  Utilitarian  scheme,  that  Utility  or  Pro- 
ductiveness of  Happiness  is  the  essence  of  Virtue.  But  in  the  subsequent  debata 
Dr.  Taylor  was  led  to  take  the  view  that  the  essence  of  virtue  is  not  in  the  pro- 
duction of  happiness,  but  in  the  happiness  found  in  benevolent  action.  The  ul- 
timate motive  in  virtuous  action  is  not  a  regard  to  one's  own  future  happiness;  it 
is  not  a  regard  to  the  highest  good  objectively;  but  it  is  the  pleasure  which  one 
experiences  in  benevolent  activity.  That  pleasure  is  the  ultimate  motive  and  con- 
trolling  element.  The  difference  between  this  scheme  and  Paley's  can  perhaps 
be  briefly  indicated  by  emphasis:  Paley  says,  My  happiness  is  the  object  of  virtuoui 
action:  this  theory,  My  happiness  is  the  motive  of  such  action. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  211 

find  in  the  discussions  a  separation  between  this  and  the  grosser 
forms  of  the  happiness  schemes. 

Now  in  reference  to  this  view,  we  grant  the  whole  fact 
alleged:  that  our  happiness  is  found  in  benevolence;  but  we 
deny  the  inference :  that  this  happiness  is  the  ultimate  motive 
for  right  action,  or  the  ultimate  basis  of  an  ethical  system,  and 
for  the  following  reasons: 

1.  This  theory  gives  us  no  radical  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong  actions.      The  difference  is  simply  and  only  a  differ- 
ence in  the  greater  or  less  degree  of  the  same  thing,  i.  e.,  of 
happiness.     In  sin  there  is  some  happiness,  in  virtue  there  is 
more.     In  the  wicked  and  the  good  man  there  is  the  same 
ultimate  motive,  love  of  happiness. 

We  grant  the  existence  of  this  motive  in  all  men:  it  is 
constitutional:  but  we  say,  it  is  not  this  self-love  which  gives 
the  difference  in  our  actions  as  right  and  wrong.  And  if  it  be 
made  the  ultimate  thing  in  ethics,  the  ethics  is  not  founded  on 
any  distinct  ultimate  conception,  whereby  it  is  distinguished 
from  any  other  branch  of  science.  The  difference  of  right  and 
wrong  is  not  explained  by  this  theory,  and  if  anything  else  is 
brought  in  to  explain  it,  then  that  something  else  will  be  the 
foundation  of  ethics. 

2.  Closely  connected  with  the  above  is  another  objection  to 
the  theory,  viz.,  that  it  confounds  a  purely  psychological  phe- 
nomenon with  a  proper  ethical  fact  or  theory.     It  is  a  fact  that 
we  are  happy  in,  that  there  is  a  gratification  attending,  the 
exercise  of  our  moral  powers:  but  this  fact  is  not  confined  to 
our  moral  powers.     We  are  happy  in  the  exercise  of  all  our  fac- 
ulties.    We  are  happy  in  reasoning,  in  eating,  in  talking,  in 
seeing,  in  doing  anything.     A  necessary  condition  of  the  exer- 
cise of  all  our  powers  is  that  there  should  be  pleasure  in  doing 
it.     Now  if  this  pleasure,  this  happiness,  is  what  constitutes 
morality,  then  there  is  morality  in  all  our  acts  in  their  natural 
operations.     If  a  distinction  is  made,  and  it  is  said  that  only  cer- 
tain kinds  of  such  gratification  are  moral,  then  we  say,  what  are 
these  kinds,  what  distinguishes  them  from  others?  and  the  very 
thing  that  distinguishes  them  from  others  will  be  the  moral  ele- 


212  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ment.  That  is,  happiness  is  common  both  to  the  instinctive  and 
the  moral  action  of  our  powers:  and  therefore,  being  common  to 
them,  it  cannot  be  the  thing  which  distinguishes  them;  happi- 
ness is  common  both  to  the  virtuous  and  vicious  exercise  of  our 
powers,  and  therefore  it  cannot  be  the  thing  which  distinguishes 
virtue  from  vice.  The  difference  between  black  and  white  is  not 
that  they  are  both  colors.  This  we  take  to  be  an  absolute  refu- 
tation of  the  theory,  as  an  ethical  theory. 

3.  Moreover,  such  is  the  nature  of  virtue  that,  even  if  it  did 
not  confer  happiness,  it  would  be  binding  on  us.  The  sense  of 
the  binding  nature  of  virtue  is  in  no  degree  connected  with  the 
view  that  it  is  the  means  of  our  happiness.  We  can  abstract 
the  one  from  the  other.  And  if  we  did  not  feel  happy  in  vir- 
tue, we  should  still  feel  obliged  to  do  right. 

4  This  theory  proposes,  as  a  basis  of  ethics,  that  which  when 
fully  and  fairly  presented  to  the  mind  is  acknowledged  to  be 
sinful.  This  is  a  singular  anomaly  in  the  scheme.  If  one  keeps 
his  own  happiness  before  himself  objectively,  making  it  his  su- 
preme aim,  that  is  sinful,  if  anything  is:  he  must  keep  before 
himself  God,  the  good  of  others.  The  theory  says,  if  one  acts 
simply  in  view  of  his  own  happiness,  he  sins,  while  yet  it  says 
one's  own  happiness  is  th<*  ultimate  spring  and  source  of  all 
moral  action.  So  that  the  theory  frames  for  ethics  a  subjective 
basis  which  cannot  become  objective.  It  says:  All  moral  action 
resides  in  something  which  is  purely  spontaneous  and  voluntary, 
and  something  which  we  cannot  use  as  a  simple  integral  motive, 
without  committing  sin. 

5.  Self-love,  in  the  sense  defined,  viz.,  as  happiness  in  the 
general  happiness,  cannot  be  even  (as  is  often  alleged  in  de- 
fence) the  spring  of  the  motive  to  our  benevolent  acts,  (a.)  It 
cannot  exist  before  the  benevolent  impulse  itself  exists :  for  it  is 
said  to  be  the  happiness  which  is  found  in  that  benevolence  it- 
self. Hence,  the  benevolent  impulse  must  be  there  before  the 
happiness  therein  can  exist,  and  therefore  the  happiness  cannot 
be  the  spring  or  source  of  the  benevolence.  The  benevolence 
must  be  at  least  contemporaneous  with  the  happiness.  The  sun 
must  be  there  before  the  shining.  (&.)  The  mere  general  desire 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  213 

of  happiness  cannot  be  the  reason  for  any  of  our  special  acts: 
that  is  a  mere  vague  abstraction.  Edwards:1  ''Whatever  a  man 
loves,  that  thing  is  grateful  or  pleasing  to  him,  whether  it  be 
his  own  peculiar  happiness  or  the  happiness  of  others;  and  if 
this  be  all  they  mean  by  self-love,  no  wonder  they  think  all 
love  may  be  resolved  into  self-love."  This  is  calling  self-love 
that  which  is  only  a  general  capacity  of  loving  and  hating. 
This  may  be  a  general  reason  why  men  love  or  hate  anything 
at  all,  but  it  can  never  be  a  reason  why  man's  love  is  placed  on 
such  and  such  objects.2  (c.)  The  position  involves  a  vicious  cir- 
cle :  An  act  is  virtuous  because  it  gives  the  highest  happiness, 
and  it  gives  the  highest  happiness  because  it  is  virtuous. 

§  4.   General  Remarks  on  all  the  Happiness  Theories. 

1.  It  is  conceded  on  all  sides  that  in  virtue  there  is  happiness. 

2.  It  is  also  conceded  that  just  as  there  is  in  virtue  the  high- 
est present  conscious  happiness,  so  in  like  manner  virtue  tends 
to  the  highest  objective  happiness,  and  that  only  virtue  does 
this. 

3.  Happiness,  or  the  highest  happiness,  is  an  indefinite  phrase  • 
it  tells  us  nothing  of  the  specific  character  of  our  acts:  it  attends 
all  our  acts,  and  is  not  confined  to  those  which  are  moral.     In 
no  other  department,  except  ethics,  would  it  be  used  as  a  means 
of  explaining  what  the  specific  characteristics  of  a  subject  are. 
Who  would  describe  the  characteristics  of  the  intellectual  acts, 
or  of  the  nerves,  or  of  the  passions,  or  of  duties,  as  different 
forms  or  degrees  of  happiness  ?     What  is  music?     Suppose  it  de- 
fined as  that  which  confers  pleasure,  and  the  best  music  as  that 
which  confers  the  highest  pleasure.     That  would  be  the  state- 
ment of  a  fact,  but  it  would  tell  us  nothing  about  music.     The 
fallacy  is  just  as  great  in  ethics. 

4.  As  with  happiness  so  with  "  the  highest  happiness."    This 
latter  phrase,  as  employed  to  modify  the  theory,  is  indefinite  in 

1  Nature  of  Virtue,  vol.  ii.  of  Works,  p.  278.  Edwards  had  this  whole  theorj 
before  him,  and  refuted  it 

2  As  to  the  philosophy  of  love  and  self-love,  Tennyson  puts  it  just  right: 

"  Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life  and  smote  on  all  the  chords  with  might; 
Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling*  passed  in  music  out  of  sight." 


214  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY 

another  way.  It  may  mean  (and  covertly  does  mean)  the  same 
as  the  whole  system  of  things  with  its  resultant  good,  and  so  it 
constantly  includes  distinctive  moral  ends,  i.  e.t  it  means  the 
highest  good:1  the  love  of  that  is  doubtless  virtuous;  but  the 
theory  assumes  that  the  highest  good  and  the  highest  happi- 
ness are  identical,  while  in  fact  happiness  is  subjective  and  the 
good  is  objective. 

5.  The  happiness  theories  must  all  ultimately  run  into  the 
self-love  theories.  All  happiness,  in  the  last  analysis,  must  be 
a  subjective  delight  or  pleasure.  When  we  speak  of  the  highest 
happiness  of  God  and  of  the  universe,  we  must  mean  the  sum 
of  all  the  various  forms  of  happiness  that  anywhere  exist.  Hap- 
piness is  in  its  ultimate  nature  subjective.  The  general  good 
is  only  the  sum  of  self-loves. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    HOLY     LOVE    THEORIES. 

The  other  class  of  the  theories  which  define  virtue  not  form- 
ally, but  by  some  common  characteristic  of  all  virtuous  acts  and 
states,  may  be  comprised  in  these  two:  (1)  Virtue  is  the  love  of 
moral  excellence;  (2)  Virtue  is  love  to  being,  benevolence  to 
being  in  general. 

I. — Virtue  is  the  love  of  moral  excellence.  This  is  the  defi- 
nition given  by  the  Princeton  Review  and  by  Dr.  Alexander. 
Against  this  we  think  Edwards's  objection  holds,  viz.,  that  it 
supposes  virtue  before  virtue.  What  is  moral  excellence  ?  It 
is  virtue.  Then,  virtue  is  the  love  of  moral  excellence,  is — the 
love  of  virtue.  Edwards,  ii.  263:  "If  virtue  be  the  beauty  of  an 
intelligent  being,  'and  virtue  consists  in  love,  then  it  is  a  plain 
inconsistence  to  suppose  that  virtue  primarily  consists  in  any 
love  to  its  object  for  its  beauty:  either  in  a  love  of  complacence, 

1  The  proper  self-love  scheme  insists  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  eny  happiueHs 
in  the  general  happiness  is  the  greatest  good. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  215 

which  is  a  delight  in  a  being  for  his  beauty,  or  in  a  love 
of  benevolence  which  has  the  beauty  of  its  objects  for  its 
foundation." 

II. — The  theory  of  President  Edwards.  Virtue  is  love,  is 
love  to  being,  is  love  to  intelligent  beings,  is  love  to  intelli- 
gent beings  according  to  their  worth.  The  best  statement  in 
respect  to  his  school  is  not  found  in  the  writings  of  his  son. 
He  misapprehended  his  father,  saying  that  his  father's  theory 
makes  virtue  to  have  respect  to  the  happiness  of  being.  In 
Bellamy's  Works  there  is  a  much  better  statement.  In  a  letter 
(Introd.  to  his  Works,  p.  29)  dated  Bethel,  1764,  he  says:  "The 
whole  of  virtue  consists  in  conformity  to  the  divine  law ;  )ove  is  the 
sum  of  the  virtue  required  in  the  divine  law ;  benevolence,  compla- 
cence, and  gratitude  are  the  whole  of  love ;  the  object  of  benevo- 
lence is  being;  of  complacence,  virtue;  of  gratitude,  a  benefactor. 
The  divine  law  [which  commands  this]  is  a  transcript  of  the  di- 
vine nature :  and  therefore  love  is  the  sum  of  virtue  in  God  as 
well  as  in  the  creature."  He  grants  the  objection  that  this  makes 
the  good  of  being  the  chief  good,  but  says:  "The  good  of  being 
in  general,  which  is  the  object  of  benevolence,  is  not  the  partial, 
but  the  complete  good  of  being  in  general,  comprising  all  the 
good  being  is  capable  of,  by  whatever  name  called:  natural, 
moral,  spiritual;  than  which  there  is  nothing  of  greater  worth  in 
the  universe.  Nay,  'tis  the  sum  of  ALL  GOOD."  Bellamy  then  in- 
terprets the  theory  thus:  that  virtue  has  respect  to  all  good,  of 
course  including  moral  and  spiritual  good,  taking  these  to  be, 
not  the  whole  of  what  virtue  has  respect  to,  but  a  part,  in  fact 
the  very  height  of  the  good.  Love  is  then  the  affection  of 
the  soul,  and  all  the  good  of  being  is  the  object  on  which  this 
love  fastens:  and  that  is  virtue.  Edwards's  definition  is:  "that 
consent,  propensity,  and  union  of  heart  to  being  in  general, 
which  is  immediately  exercised  in  a  general  good-will."1  He 
says  also,  "Virtue  is  the  love  of  intelligent  beings  according  to 
their  respective  worth,"  and  then  distinguishes  it  into  two  main 
points:  the  love  of  benevolence  and  the  love  of  complacency. 

1  He  distinguishes  between  consent,  propensity,  union  of  heart,  and — exercises, 
Which  i»  decisive  against  those  Who  say  that  he  makes  virtue  consist  in  exercises 


216  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

"  The  love  of  benevolence  is  that  which  has  special  respect  to 
the  whole;  the  love  of  complacency  is  the  highest  form  of  vir- 
tue, and  which  has  respect  to  the  virtue  of  others."  Some  say 
that  his  theory  is  this:  that  virtue  consists  in  the  love  of  benev- 
olence, and  that  that  consists  in  seeking  the  happiness  of  crea- 
tures, and  then  complacency  does  not  belong  to  virtue  but  is  an 
offshoot.  To  us  it  is  plain  that  the  theory  makes  complacency 
to  be  just  as  much  a  part  of  virtue  as  benevolence  is,  and  not 
only  so,  but  makes  it  to  be  the  height  of  "  the  love  of  benev- 
olence "  and  of  virtue.  Edwards  also  argues  that  the  highest 
virtue  is  love  to  God,  because  He  has  the  highest  being  and 
beauty;  next,  virtue  is  love  to  men  according  to  their  capacity 
for  good  and  holiness. 

There  are  some  objections  to  this  view.1 

1.  It  is  objected  that  we  cannot  have  such  love  to  being,  as 
a  direct  act  on  our  part.     But  this  objection  arises  from  not 
comprehending  clearly  what  Edwards  was  aiming  at.     He  is 
not  describing  virtue  as  it  exists  in  our  direct  consciousness, 
but  is  stating  it  in  its  abstract  form,  in  the  philosophical  form, 
and  not  in  the  form  of  experience.     All  particular  affections 
come  under  this  general  idea,  under  all  particular  affections 
there  must  be  this  general  love,  if  the  particular  affections  are 
virtue:  but  it  is  the  particular  affections  which  come  within 
the  sphere  of  consciousness,  so  that  we  are  not  conscious  of 
purely  abstract  love,  but  only  of  the  forms  of  this  affection. 
We  Suppose  that  Edwards  came  to  this  theory  in  this  way: 
The  law  of  God  commands  us  to  love  God  and  to  love  men,  and 
that  is  the  sum  of  virtue.     Now  here  are  two  statements,  but  it 
is  cumbrous  to  use  both.     He  asks  then  for  a  formal  statement 
which  will  embrace  both.     Taking  God  and  man  together  as 
including  all  intelligent  being,  if  we  say  love  to  being,  we  have 
the  statement  which  comprises  both. 

2.  It  is  objected  that  this  theory  destroys  private  affections. 
The  answer  to  this  is,  that  the  relations  to  which  these  private 
affections  belong  are  a  part  of  the  system  of  being  to  which  our 
love  has  respect.     The  private  affections  respond  to  the  demands 

1  The  acutest  are  those  of  Robert  Hall. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  217 

for  particular  degrees  and  forms  of  love,  and  it  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  theory  to  suppose  such  response  to  be  made. 
The  relations  which  call  forth  the  private  affections  make  the 
particular  "worth"  of  the  object. 

3.  The  theory  is  said  to  be  Utilitarian.     It  is  difficult  to 
know  what  some  people  mean  by  this  word.     Generally,  in  phil- 
osophical speech,  Utilitarianism  means,  those  theories  which  make 
virtue  culminate  in  happiness,  or  in  the  "  general  good,"  viewed 
as  having  respect  ultimately  to  happiness  either  objective  or  sub- 
jective.    If  Edwards  had  made  virtue  to  have  ultimate  respect 
to  happiness,  his  theory  would  hare  been  Utilitarian;  but  as  we 
understand  him,  this  is  in  no  wise  the  case. 

4.  It  is  also  objected  that  the  theory  does  not  allow  for  rec- 
titude being  a  simple  idea,  but  that  it  resolves  the  idea  of  right 
into  something   else.     This   objection   comes  from  not  distin 
guishing  between  right  and   virtue.     The  idea  of  right   is   a 
much  broader  idea  than  that  of  virtue.     All  that  Edwards  says 
is  this:  that  rectitude,  subjective  as  it  is  found  in  moral  beings,  is 
this  love  to  being,  and  that  that  is  what  is  right  in  a  moral 
being.     The  theory  presupposes  that  right  is  a  simple  idea,  and 
that  it  can  be  applied  to  this  love  of  being. 

5.  It  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  some  difficulties  in 
Edwards's  mode  of  stating  the  theory,     (a.)  The  phraseology 
"love  of  being"  is  too  abstract:  readers,  taking  from  this  the 
notion  of  this  love  being  independent  of  God,  are  likely  to  run 
into  a  pantheistic  view:  though  as  respects  Edwards   himself, 
this  was  fully  guarded  by  his  idea  of  God.     Concretely  and  in 
consciousness,  "  being  "  is  not  the  object  of  love :  God  must  be 
the  object  of  love.     (6.)  In  Edwards's  writings,  the  discussion 
of  the  nature  of  virtue  is  perhaps  not  sufficiently  connected 
with  the  "  end  of  God  in  creation,"  or  with  the  plan  of  God,  or 
with  the  whole  system  of  things.     The  objective  ground  does 
not  seem  to  be  sufficiently  stated,     (c.)  Another  difficulty  arises 
from  difference  of  usage  as  to  the  word   "benevolence."     In 
common  usage,  it  is  taken  for  a  lower  form  of  virtue:  that  which 
has  respect  to  human  beings,  and  to  happiness  simply  as  distin- 
guished from  holiness.     But  Edwards  defines  benevolence  for 


218  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

himself,  and  means  to  include  holiness  in  it  or  to  make  it  equiv 
alent  to  holiness.  If  "  benevolence"  be  taken  in  the  lower  sense, 
the  statement,  the  essence  of  virtue  is  in  benevolence,  is  liable 
to  very  grave  objections.  The  interpretation  of  Edwards  as  taking 
benevolence  in  the  lower  sense,  making  it  to  have  respect  to 
happiness  ultimately,  is  followed  up  by  Dr.  D  wight,  and  leads 
to  what,  in  our  judgment,  is  the  great  defect  of  his  system.1 

[ A  later  statement  than  the  above  by  the  author"] :  The  true  sense  of  Edwards's 
Theory  of  Virtue.  Love,  in  its  extension,  has  respect  to  all  sentient,  intelligent 
being,  seeking  its  good:  this  is  the  love  of  benevolence.  Love,  in  its  intension  and 
concentration,  has  respect  to,  seeks,  the  best  good  or  holiness:  this  is  the  love  of 
complacency.  These  are  not  two  kinds  of  love:  true,  genuine  love  will,  must,  take 
these  two  forms.  Cannot  the  categories  of  quantity  and  quality  be  here  applied 
with  advantage  ? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

SOME    HINTS   AS   TO   A    THEORY   OF   THE    NATURE    OF    VIRTUE. 

§  1.  Preliminary  Statements. 

1.  Limitations  and  specific  sense  of  the  inquiry  as  to  the  na- 
ture of  true  virtue  or  holiness.     The  inquiry  is  not  as  to  the 
whole  of  rectitude,  but  as  to  the  prime  excellence  of  a  moral 
being,  or  as  to  rectitude,  concrete  and  subjective,  rectitude  as 
existing  and  exemplified  in  a  moral  being;  and  the  inquiry  is, 
as  stated  before,  for  some  common  element  or  principle  in  all 
virtuous  acts:  whether  there  be  any  such. 

2.  Validity  of  this  inquiry.     This  may  be  argued:  (a.)  From 
the  analogy  of  the  other  sciences:  all  strive  after  unity;  (b.)  From 
the  conscious  sense  of  the  distinctiveness  of  the  moral  sphere: 
the  kingdom  of  holiness,  kingdom  of  evil;  (c.)  Historically:  there 
have  been  constant  attempts  at   such  theories.     The  inquiry, 
are  there  many  virtues  or  one  ?  is  as  old  as  the  Greek  philosophy : 
(d.)  The  inquiry  after  one  common  principle  of  all  that  is  virtuous, 

1  In  Remarks  on  Pres.  Edwards's  Dissertations,  etc.,  by  Eev.  Wm.  Hart  Say 
brook,  New  Haven,  1 771,  some  points  are  acutely  stated. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  219 

is  also  justified  by  what  may  be  called,  the  unity  of  our  moral 
consciousness:  we  are  conscious  that  here  is  a  distinct  sphere.1 

Even  if  ive  cannot  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  solution,  this  should 
not  lead  us  to  deny  the  validity  and  possibility  of  the  inquiry. 

It  is  better  to  pause  and  say,  we  cannot  meet  the  inquiry, 
than  to  be  content  with  a  theory  tuhich  undermines  our  moral 
convictions. 

3.  The  special  difficulties  of  the  inquiry. 

(a.)  Since  almost  all  terms,  expressing  moral  states  and  acts, 
refer  to  concrete  cases,  to  specific  acts,  the  chief  difficulty  is  in 
rescuing  some  terms  from  their  partial  signification  and  giving 
them  a  general  meaning.  E.  g.,  benevolence,  as  already  stated, 
is  commonly  used  to  express  mere  general  good-will,  a  kind 
regard  to  our  fellow-beings,  a  desire  of  their  happiness.  Now 
if  this  term  be  taken  to  express  the  essence  of  virtue,  it  is  very 
likely  to  be  interpreted  in  a  partial  sense, — as  it  often  is  in  Ed- 
wards's  system,  and  made  to  be  the  basis  of  a  theory  at  war  with 
the  whole  spirit  of  his  system.  It  is  even  used  in  the  sense  of 
good- will  to  creatures,  not  including  love  to  God:  and  even  as 
implying  a  regard  for  happiness  in  distinction  from  a  regard  to 
holiness.  So  if  justice  or  holiness,  love  of  the  general  happiness 
or  good,  or  love  of  rectitude,  be  taken  to  express  the  fundamental 
moral  state,  we  have  similar  difficulties.  Any  term  which  is 
taken  to  express  the  common  principle  of  all  moral  states  must 
be  somewhat  deflected  from  its  partial  use  for  scientific  purposes.1 
This  is  the  case  in  all  the  sciences. 

(6.)  A  second  difficulty  about  the  inquiry  is  this:  Common 
speech  makes  a  specific  difference  between  what  is  moral  and 
what  is  religious,  so  that  a  man  may  be  "virtuous"  without 
being  religious,  and  it  is  also  alleged,  may  be  religious  without 
being  virtuous.  Hence  the  advocates  of  mere  morality  as  the 
gum  of  human  duty,  are  apt  to  insist  upon  a  definition  of  virtue 

1  Different  from  what  is  stated  under  (6.),  as  that  refers  to  the  objective  uni- 
verse, which  we  view  and  must  view,  as  issuing  in  moral  "kingdoms."     This  re- 
lates to  our  subjective  necessity  of  putting  all  things  under  a  moral  point  of  view, 

2  Virtue  was  used  by  the  ancients  for  manly  courage;  it  is  used  by  us  for  our 
lower  relationships;  and  if  we  enlarge  its  meaning*  the  word  becomes  liable  to 
constant  misapprehension. 


220  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

which  will  allow  this  sundering.  Modern  Philanthropy  rests 
very  much  here,  seizing  upon  a  definition  of  virtue  which  will 
only  apply  to  morals,  and  leave  out  love  to  God.  But  if  there 
be  no  real  difference,  so  that  where  religion  is  riot,  there  cannot 
be  true  virtue,  there  is  special  need  of  making  this  evident. 
And  here,  in  fact,  is  one  of  the  fundamental  antagonisms  of  the 
times,  of  Christianity  with  philosophy.  If  true  virtue  can  be 
justly  defined  without  bringing  in  the  religious  element,  there 
is  a  vantage-ground  for  scepticism.1 

(c.)  Another  difficulty  is  that  if  we  reduce  all  that  is  virtuous 
to  some  common  principle,  there  is  danger  of  making  it  so  ab- 
stract that  one  cannot  verify  it  from  experience,  and  it  becomes 
worthless  in  fact,  and  not  only  worthless  but  mischievous,  play- 
ing into  the  hands  of  infidelity,  as,  e.  g.,  the  pantheist  may  say: 
I  have  such  generic  love  of  being  as  is  said  to  be  the  essence 
of  virtue,  and  hence  I  am  truly  virtuous. 

(d.)  Another  difficulty — akin  to  the  second  stated  above — may 
be  suggested  by  the  contrast  between  the  terms,  holiness  and 
benevolence,  as  commonly  used:  holiness  being  the  love  of,  and 
delight  in,  all  moral  perfection,  and  benevolence  being  a  general 
regard  to  happiness.  Now  it  is  said,  these  two  things  are  so 
distinct  that  we  cannot  reduce  them  to  any  common  principle. 
E.  g  ,  When  we  speak  of  a  holy  and  then  of  a  benevolent  God,  ideas 
so  different  are  suggested  that  we  cannot  bring  them  into  union 
under  any  one  conception.2  The  same  is  the  case  with  the  two 
terms,  rectitude  and  happiness  or  good.  Some  insist  that  in 
ethics,  all  that  we  can  do  is  to  say  that  rectitude  is  a  simple 
idea,  and  that  the  love  of  rectitude  is  virtue,  and  that  if  the 
idea  of  happiness  is  brought  into  ethics,  it  is  vitiated,  and  the 
radical  distinction  between  virtue  and  vice  is  denied. 

§  2.   The  Scriptural  Vieiv  of  the  Nature  of  True  Virtue. 

The  Scriptures  do  not  discuss  abstract  questions  of  specula- 
tion, either  metaphysical  or  ethical;  and  therefore  it  might  seem 
irrelevant  to  refer  to  them ;  but  we  may  proceed  here  precisely 

1  '  'All  morality  without  piety  is  as  a  goodly  statue  without  a  head  "  (Lactantius). 

2  Dr.  McGosh,  on  the  ground  of  this  difficulty,  holds  to  both  unanalyzed,  m 
ultimate  and  necessary. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  221 

as  we  do  in  respect  to  doctrines,  i.  e.,  in  the  way  of  deduction 
and  of  using  Scripture  as  a  test.  What  cannot  be  derived  from 
the  Bible  cannot  be  a  true  ethical  theory:  what  cannot  be  tested 
by  the  Bible  cannot  be  a  true  ethical  theory.  Scripture  does 
not  give  us  the  general  abstract  form  of  statement,  but  it  gives 
the  data  from  which  that  statement,  if  it  be  true,  must  be  de- 
rived. And  in  fact  the  Scriptures  n-ot  only  enforce  all  specific 
duties,  but  they  also  give  some  general  summaries,  which  make 
the  work  of  deduction  and  of  test  comparatively  easy.  Such  a 
summary  is  given  us  in  the  law;  the  principle  which  runs  through 
that,  or  rather,  the  principle  which  secures  obedience  to  that, 
must  be  the  principle  of  all  true  virtue.  "  How  love  I  thy  law !  " 
Besides  the  law  in  the  Old  Testament,  we  have  the  re-affirmation 
of  it,  and  the  reduction  of  it  to  two  principles,  by  Christ,  and  in 
other  passages  of  the  New  Testament  which  enforce  and  apply 
it.  The  chief  passages  bearing  on  the  point  are  the  following: 
Matt.  xxii.  37-39  (parallel,  Mark  xii.  29-31),  where  love  to  God 
and  love  to  men  are  the  sum  of  the  law,  and  where  Christ  says 
of  love  to  God:  "This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment"; 
1  Pet.  i.  16,  where  holiness  is  the  word  used  for  the  sum  of 
moral  excellence  in  the  creature;  Matt.  v.  48; — then  in  a  spe- 
cific relation,  Matt.  vii.  12;  Gal.  v.  14;  1  John  iv.  20-21,  where 
it  is  argued,  that  love  to  man  and  to  God  are  the  same  principle 
(also  in  1  John  iii.  17);  1  John  iv.  8,  where  love  is  set  forth  as 
the  supreme  excellence  in  God,  insomuch  that  it  can  be  used 
for  God  himself;  Rom.  xiii.  8,  10;  1  Cor.  xiii. ;  Gal.  v.  13-15;  vi.  2; 
Col.  iii.  14;  1  Tim.  i.  5;  1  Pet.  ii.  21-25,  where  following  Christ 
is  set  forth  as  the  sum  of  duty.1 

The  General  Results  from  these  passages: 

1.  Love  must  be  the  common  principle — love  to  God  and 
love  to  men. 

2.  Love  must  have  chief  respect  to  personal  beings,  God  and 
men,  although  it  would  not  exclude  some  regard  to  animals. 

i  Kothe  says  (i.  196):  There  are  five  principles:  (1)  Likeness  to  God;  (2)  "Be 
ye  holy";  (3)  Follow  Christ;  (4)  Have  love  to  God  and  man;  (5)  "What  ye  would 
that  men  should  do,"  etc.  Miiller  (i.  140)  says — and  justly:  N.ot  so;  none  of  the 
others,  in  dignity  and  importance,  are  equal  to  what  Christ  so  solemnly  declares 
in  Matt.  xxii.  37  (Mark  xii.  29). 


222  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

3.  Love  to  God  is  and  must  be  the  highest  form  of  virtue. 

4.  Men  must  be  loved  under  the  aspects  and  for  the  ends 
for  which  God  made  man. 

5.  These  aspects,   or  ends,   or  this  end,  is:  Mans  relations 
to  the  kingdom  which  God  has  revealed  in  Christ  his  Son. 

6.  Hence,  Love  to  God  and  to  God's  great  end  in  creation, 
and  to  men  in  their  relation  to  this  end,  is  the  comprehensive 
sense  of  "Love"  in  the  Bible. 

7.  This  love  is  essentially  the  same  in  God  and  man :  Matt, 
v.  48;   1  Pet.  i.  16.     It  is  also  essentially  the  same  in  respect 
both  to  God   and  to  man.     Love  to  God  will   bring   love  to 
man  with  it,  and  true  love  to  man  presupposes  and  involves 
love  to  God.     Subjectively  and  objectively  (i.  e.,  as  respects  the 
"  good  "  on  which  it  fastens)  the  love  is  essentially  the  same  in 
God  and  man. 

8.  It  should  be  observed,  that  love  to  men  is  not  (a.)  love  to 
men  as  holy,  primarily;  for  if  this  were  so.  there  could  be  no  love 
of  sinners:  yet  it  is  love  to  men  as  capable  of  holiness;  (b.)  It 
is  not  love  to  men  as  capable  of  happiness  alone,  though  this  is 
included-,  (c.)  It  is  such  a  love  to  men  as  leads  one  to  seek 
their  whole  good,  in  the  system  of  things  which  God  has  estab- 
lished, and  in  ultimate  relation  to  the  great  ends  of  the  system. 
Love  to  man,  and  even  to  sinners,  will  view  them  in  respect  to 
God's  kingdom,  as  capable  of  holiness,  although  not  yet  holy, 
and  will  lead  us  to  strive  for  their  holiness.     (This  is  another 
objection  to  the  definition  of  virtue  as  the  love  of  moral  excel- 
lence.    It  is  a  love  which  would  lead  one  to  seek  the  whole  good 
of  man.) 

9.  Love  to  God  is  not — love  to  the  divine  happiness:  it  is  love 
to  God  as  the  highest  and  best  of  beings. 

§  3.  Statement  of  the  Principle  of  True  Virtue  in  the  abstract. 

There  are  two  modes  of  statement :  the  abstract  and  the  con- 
crete. The  abstract  is  the  mode  for  the  intellect,  for  science,  in 
the  form  of  general  truth,  and  so  as  to  cover  all  virtue  or  holi- 
ness, that  of  God  as  well  as  of  the  creature.  The  concrete  is  the 
real  mode,  the  description  of  virtue  in  its  vivid,  living  traits,  the 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  223 

statement  of  it  as  it  consciously  exists  in  moral  beings,  as  it  is 
in  the  real  system  of  things,  as  it  is  to  be  preached  and  practiced, 
and  specifically,  of  virtue  as  it  exists  in  men. 

1.  The  principle  of  all  virtue  in  the  abstract  must  be  found 
in  love,  that  being  the  highest  form  of  activity  of  our  moral  na- 
ture.    All  the  powers  of  the  mind  concentrate  in  love.     Love  is 
union  of  heart  to  other  beings,  involving  delight,  and  prompting 
us  to  seek  all  their  good  in  the  relations  in  which  they  are  placed. 

2.  It  is  not,  however,  love  as  a  mere  internal  emotion,  as  a 
subjective  state  alone.     The  character  of  love  is  that  it  dem'ands 
an  object :  it  is  defined  and  characterized  by  its  objects,  and  only 
thus.     The  character  of  holy  love  can  then  only  be  defined  by 
stating  its  proper  objects.     All  love  is  not  virtuous.     There  is  a 
doctrine  of  final  causes  in  ethics.     There  are  instinctive  forms 
of  affection,  and  natural  affections  which  have  not  the  element 
of  true  virtue  in  them.     Our  affections  chiefly  have  respect  to 
personal  beings,  to  moral  beings,  beings  having  moral  capaci- 
ties and  ends. 

3.  The  definition  of  Holy  Love  or  True  Virtue.     There  are 
various  forms  of  statement,  in  the  way  of  general  description, — 
the  object  being  to  give  a  general  statement  which  shall  em- 
brace all  the  modes  of  virtuous  love. 

(a.)  General  and  indefinite:  True  Virtue  is  love  (the  highest 
subjective  state)  of  the  highest  good  (the  greatest  objective  well- 
being).  It  is  described  sometimes,  as  love  of  the  whole  system 
of  things,  and  of  each  part  in  its  due  relation  to  the  whole. 

(b.)  More  particular:  It  is,  love  of  intelligent  and  sentient 
beings,  in  relation  to  the  great  ends  of  the  system.  Or,  it  is 
love  of  the  good  of  intelligent  beings,  with  ultimate  respect  to 
their,  and  to  the,  highest  good. 

(c.)  A  definite  statement:  True  Virtue  is,  love  of  all  intelli- 
gent and  sentient  beings,  according  to  their  respective  capacities 
for  good,  with  chief  and  ultimate  respect  to  the  highest  good,  or 
holiness. 

We  have  here:  (1)  love,  the  subjective  affection;.  (2)  the  ob- 
ject of  love,  intelligent  and  sentient  beings;  (3)  the  variety  of 
love :  it  varies  according  to  the  relative  capacities  of  its  objects 


224  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

for  good ;  (4)  the  main,  supreme  object  of  the  love,  that  which  is 
chiefly  and  ultimately  in  view,  the  holiness  of  beings. 

True  Virtue  has  thus  respect  to  all  good,  and  to  all  beings  as 
capable  of  good  (including  capacity  for  happiness),  but  in  its 
very  nature  it  has  chief  respect  to  the  highest  good  or  holiness. 
According  to  this,  it  would  follow  that  virtuous  love  in  reference 
to  each  individual,  who  may  be  the  object  of  it,  can  only  consist 
in  loving  him  according  to  his  place  in  the  system;  and  this  is 
determined  by  three  considerations:  (1)  The  inherent  dignity 
and  capacity  of  the  individual  himself;  (2)  The  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  great  ends  of  the  system;  (3)  His  special  rela- 
tions to  us  in  our  relations  to  the  whole  system.  (This  last  point 
gives  the  elements  which  are  necessary  to  vindicate  the  private 
affections.)  There  must  not  only  be  capacity  of  being,  but  also 
relation  to  tJie  ends  of  the  system.1  Satan  has  more  capacity  of  being 
than  many  saints. 

(d.)  Some  further  explanations.  True  Virtue  is  love  of  the 
whole  system,  of  all  its  ends,  yet  chiefly  its  highest  end.  The 
distinction  between  the  primary  and  the  ultimate  object  of  vir- 
tuous love  is  important.  Virtue  has  respect  to  all  good,  to  all 
beings  as  capable  of  good,  but  it  has,  in  its  very  nature,  chief 
respect  to  the  highest  good  or  to  holiness.  Virtue  regards  each 
one  according  to  his  relative  dignity  and  value:  it  loves  most,  it 
must  love  most,  the  most  excellent  of  beings;  this  is  also  of  its 
nature.  Virtue  seeks  the  good  of  each,  all  the  good,  chiefly  the 
holiness,  of  each,  and  delights  most  in  holiness.  The  chief,  high- 
est form  of  virtue  is  conceded  to  be  the  love  of  holiness,  the  love 
of  beings  for  their  moral  worth,  and  in  proportion  to  this.  Vir- 
tue is  not  the  love  of  moral  excellence  alone;  some  forms  of 
virtue  are  not  contained  in  this.2  It  is  not  the  love  of  abstract 
being,  but  of  being  as  it  exists.  Virtue  is  not  the  love  of  the 
Good  exclusively  (as  distinguished  from  the  True  and  the  Beau- 

This  does  not  appear  to  have  been  sufficiently  insisted  upon  by  President 
Edwards. 

2  [The  remainder  of  this  paragraph  consists  of  hints  which  the  author  appears 
to  have  noted  down  for  his  future  consideration.] 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.          225 

tiful).  All  leing,  as  it  is  known  to,  and  appeals  to,  us,  may  be 
comprised  in  the  objects  of  the  love  which  is  virtue.  Virtue,  as 
the  highest  subjective  moral  state,  may  be  said  to  be  the  love 
of  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good,  according  to  the  re- 
spective and  relative  value  of  each  and  all, — being  highest  in 
love  to  God,  as  the  supreme  Truth,  Beauty,  and  Goodness.  Is  it 
not  partial  and  arbitrary  to  restrict  virtue  to  the  sensibilities,  to 
the  love  of  good  as  a  sensitive  state  ?  Is  not  love  of  the  truth 
equally  essential  to  its  nature  ?  It  is,  love  of  the  True  and  the 
Good ;  also  of  the  Beautiful,  in  its  measure. 

§  4.  Arguments  for  the  above  Definition. 

1.  It  is  comprehensive.     It  is  the  union  of  the  highest  sub- 
jective state  with  all,  and  with  the  highest,  objective  weal. 

2.  It  includes  morality  and  religion  both,  and  puts  morality 
in  its  proper  place  as  subordinate  to  religion. 

3.  Unless  virtue  be  thus  defined  as  having  ultimate  respect 
to  holiness,  the  definition  is  not  complete.     Any  other  view  of 
virtue  would  fb.il  to  bring  us  into  relation  to  the  real  end  of  God's 
kingdom,  which  is,  as  regards  the  creature,  his  holiness  in  union 
with  himself.     Therefore  we  must  include  the  statement  of  this. 

4.  Unless  so  defined,  the  definition  does  not  include  the  very 
highest  form  of  virtue,  which  is  conceded  to  be  the  love  of  holi- 
ness.    This  would  not  then  be  shown  to  belong  to  the  essence 
of  virtue,  but  would  be  merely  one  of  its  manifestations  or  pro- 
ductions.    Can  any  love  to  a  moral  being  be  holy,  which  has 
not  ultimate  respect  to  his  holiness,  i.  e.,  to  his  highest  and  best 
state  as,  love  to  a  child?     If  true  virtue  have  respect  to  the 
good  of  moral  beings,  it  must  have  chief  respect  to  their  highest 
good :  from  this  there  is  no  escape.     And  that  which  true  virtue 
or  holy  love  chiefly  seeks  must  be  a  product  of  the  very  essence 
of  virtue,  though  it  be  not  the  whole  thereof.     The  love  may 
show  itself  in  doing  good  in  a  thousand  ways,  but  the  highest 
love  must  be  shown  with  reference  to  holiness.     No  definition 
of  the  intellectual  operations  would  be  sufficient,  which  did  not 


226  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

cover  their  highest  exercise,  the  intuitive  discernment  of  truth 
We  cannot  show  that  virtue  must  have  supreme  regard  to  holi 
ness,  unless  in  our  definition  we  make  it  such  that  it  will.  If 
virtue,  both  primarly  and  ultimately,  is  regard  to  happiness,  then 
there  is  no  reason  in  its  very  nature  why  it  delights  in  holiness. 
5.  As  defined,  Virtue  includes  all  the  forms  of  virtue,  all  the 
different  virtues  in  their  place,  and  it  shows  why  the  virtues  of 
the  impenitent  are  not  truly  such,  (a.)  It  includes  the  animate 
tribes,  according  to  their  place:  although  that  form  of  virtue 
which  has  respect  to  the  holiness  of  the  object  of  love  is  not 
applicable  here,  yet  that  same  temper  of  love  which  most  delights 
in  holiness  will  have  kind  regard  to  their  well-being.  (To  alter 
all  our  definition  for  their  sake  alone  would  hardly  be  wise:  some- 
thing must  be  understood  in  every  definition.)  (6.)  It  includes 
love  to  the  impenitent,  seeking  their  good,  yet  ours  is  not  vir- 
tuous affection  unless  it  regards  their  highest  good,  (c.)  It 
includes  gratitude,  for  all  good,  while  it  demands  the  highest 
gratitude,  for  the  highest  good,  to  our  highest  Benefactor. 
(d.)  It  includes  self-love,  in  its  proper  place,  loving  ourselves 
according  to  our  place  in  the  system,  yet  so  that  we  have  chief 
respect  to  our  holiness :  there  is  no  true  self-love  without  that.1 
(e.)  It  includes  justice:  treating  all  as  conformed  or  not  con- 
formed to  the  great  end  of  the  system;  and  truthfulness:  acting 
and  speaking  according  to  the  real  relations  of  things  in  the 
spirit  of  love.  (Eph.  iv.  25,  u  Speak  ye  truth  each  one  with  his 
neighbor:  for  we  are  members  one  of  another.")  (/.)  It  includes 
the  love  of  rectitude,  of  all  that  is  right,  especially  of  the  highest 
forms  of  what  is  right:  the  love  of  complacency  in  all  moral  ex- 
cellence. ((/.)  It  includes  justice  in  the  form  of  punishment,  as 
upholding  holy  ends.  It  is  difficult  to  get  warrant  for  punish- 
ment from  theories  which  make  virtue  to  be  the  love  of  happi- 
ness; it  may  be  said,  Punishment  is  the  infliction  of  misery  on 
those  who  are  opposing  the  highest  happiness:  but  how  is  that 
right,  if  virtue  has  regard  only  to  happiness?  (h.)  It  includes 
faith,  which  is  "nothing  without  love,"  and  true  repentance, 
which  springs  from  holy  love,  and  is  a  mode  of  its  manifesta 
1  Aristotle  says:  The  wicked  ought  not  to  love  themselves,  but  the  good  may 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  227 

tion.  Thus  all  the  other  virtues  are  included  in  it.  (i.)  The 
definition  also  shows  why  the  virtues  of  the  impenitent  are  not 
truly  such.  It  is  because  they  have  not  the  main  element  of 
true  love,  a  supreme  regard  to  God  and  his  glory,  and  the  great 
end  of  the  system. 

The  form  of  statement  given  above  for  the  abstract  nature 
of  virtue,  is  intended  to  meet  the  difficulties  suggested  by  the 
contrasted  terms:  holiness  and  benevolence,  or  rectitude  and 
benevolence  (love  of  happiness.)  The  tension  of  the  ethical 
problem  is  in  these  two  contrasted  terms.  The  real  problem  is 
to  find  a  statement  of  the  nature  of  virtue  which  shall  give  its 
just  place  to  these.  This  we  have  attempted. 

In  all  true  virtue  there  must  be  both  holiness  and  benevolence. 
But  if  virtue  be  made  the  love  of  holiness,  it  is  exposed  to  the 
objection  already  recited,  that  virtue  is  the  cause  and  effect  of 
itself.  Again,  if,  to  avoid  this  difficulty,  we  say,  virtue  is  (both 
primarily  and  ultimately)  the  love  of  beings  as  capable  of  hap- 
piness, we  are  exposed  to  the  difficulties  attending  the  happi- 
ness theories;  we  have  no  real  ethical  end  as  the  object  of 
virtue.  The  former  seems  to  banish  good-will  as  a  real  form 
of  virtue,  and  the  latter  to  resolve  all  virtue  into  good-will. 

There  is  a  real  difficulty  here,  as  already  expounded,  and 
whether  it  is  successfully  met  in  our  statement,  is  the  question. 
In  point  of  fact,  when  men  put  all  holiness  in  the  love  of  the 
highest  happiness,  do  they  not  really  suppose,  that  in  the  high- 
est happiness,  in  that  which  makes  the  highest  happiness  of  God 
and  the  universe,  there  is  a  distinctive  moral  element  or  end  ? 

§  5.  Some  Objections  to  the  Theory. 

1.  The  definition  is  too  abstract.     We  cannot  have  such  love 
to  all  good,  or  to  "  being."     It  has  been  already  granted  that 
this  is  true,  if  the  definition  is  understood  to  imply  that  we  are 
to  have  this  public  affection  as  a  specific,  distinct  exercise.     But 
in  fact  we  are  simply  inquiring  for  the  common  quality  of  all 
our  virtuous  acts,  of  our  specific  exercises. 

2.  The  definition  supposes  virtue  before  virtue.     This  objec- 
tion lies  only  against  the  position  that  virtue  has  exclusive  re- 


228  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

gard  to  moral  excellence;  that  this  is  its  primary  ground  as  well 
as  ultimate  end;  that  virtue  not  only  essentially  consists  in,  but 
is  wholly  made  up  of,  love  to  moral  excellence  in  the  concrete: 
or,  in  other  words,  that  the  whole  of  virtue  is  in  complacency, 
or  a  delight  in  beings  for  their  holiness.  Our  statement  seeks 
to  avoid  this  by  saying  that  virtue  is  love  to  all  good,  yet  chiefly 
and  ultimately  to  all  in  its  relations  to  the  highest  good,  to  holiness. 
In  other  words,  virtue  has  primary  reference  to  beings  as  capable 
of  good,  ultimate,  to  their  highest  good.  The  ultimate  object 
of  virtue,  that  which  it  ultimately  seeks,  must  be  a  state  of 
things  in  which  holiness  abounds,  in  which  holy  love  rules  all. 
But  virtue  includes  also  the  love  of  other  things,  of  inferior 
ends  and  beings,  and  of  all  inferior  ends  and  beings  in  their 
proper  degree  and  in  their  due  subordinations  and  relations 
to  the  highest  end  or  good.  Love  chiefly  respects:  (1)  per- 
sons; (2)  the  value  of  persons;  (3)  their  capacities  for  good; 
(4)  their  highest  good  or  virtue;  or:  personal  being — which  has 
variety  and  gradation — which  in  all  its  gradations  has  capacities 
for  different  kinds  of  good — and  which  has  in  all  capacity  for 
the  highest  good  or  holiness.  As  the  sentiment  of  the  beauti- 
ful has  ultimate  respect  to  beauty  objectively,  so  love  seeks 
ultimately  to  beget  love.  In  short,  our  definition  makes  virtue 
to  be,  subjective  love  to  an  objective  system,  which  includes  in 
itself  both  happiness  and  holiness,  yet  holiness  as  ultimate. 
Virtue,  abstractly  considered,  is  a  generic  affection  embracing 
both  these. 

3.  Such  a  view  of  virtue,  as  the  definition  gives,  destroys  the 
private  affections.     This  has  been  already  considered.     The  fact 
is,  that  the  definition  simply  puts  the  private  affections  in  their 
place.     The  natural  relation  is  a  part  of  the  capacity  or  worth 
of  the  object. 

4.  Every  definition  of  virtue  is  utilitarian,  which  does  not 
make  it  to  be,  strictly  and  exclusively,  the  love  of  rectitude. 
This   also   has   been  considered.     The   definition    of  virtue   as 
consisting  exclusively  in  love  to  moral  excellence,  if  strictly 
carried  out,  would  leave  no  room  for  love  to  sinners. 

5.  Resolving  virtue,  as  this  definition  does,  into  the  love 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION  229 

of  all  good,  makes  virtue  as  compared  with  vice  to  be  simply  a 
matter  of  degrees:  love  to  the  minor  forms  of  being  is  sin,  and 
to  the  highest  forms,  is  virtue.  The  reply  is  in  the  repetition 
of  the  theory.  Virtue  consists  in  the  love  of  the  whole,  and 
the  love  of  each  is  virtuous,  only  as  it  is  based  upon  and  ex- 
presses this  love  of  the  whole.  Sin  is  found  in  the  less 
love  where  a  greater  good  ought  to  have  been  loved.  Sin  is 
the  love  of  the  less,  and  virtue  is  the  love  of  the  whole;  and  thus 
the  distinction  between  virtue  and  vice  is  not  resolved  into  a 
matter  of  degrees.  In  the  love  of  the  whole,  there  is  an  element 
which  is  not  in  the  particular  love. 

§  6.  Statement  of  the  general  Principle  of  all  Virtue  in  the 
concrete, 

1.  The  real  moral  system,1  that  in  which  we  live  and  act, 
is  a  system  which  has  God,  a  personal  being,  for  its  author  and 
end.     To  live  for  and  to  promote  the  great  ends  of  that  system 
is  our  real  virtue. 

2.  Even  in  this  world,  our  chief  if  not  exclusive  relations  are 
with  personal  beings,  in  their  relations  to  the  great  ends  of  the 
system,  and  in  respect  thereto.     Our  affections  primarily,  and 
of  course  ultimately,  have  respect  to  personal  beings.     The  love 
of  animals,  flowers,  etc.,  is  transient  and  subordinate. 

3  The  highest  relation,  which  we  sustain  as  personal  beings 
in  this  system,  is  our  relation  to  a  personal  God,  whether  we 
regard  his  inherent  dignity,  or  his  relation  to  the  whole  system 
and  its  ends.  God's  glory  is  the  objective  end  of  the  system. 
That  glory  is  chiefly  shown  in  promoting  holiness — holiness  in 
the  creature — and  in  making  this  supreme. 

4.  If  all  virtue,  then,  consist  in   love,  its  fundamental,   its 
highest,  its  most  comprehensive  form  must  be  in  love  to  God. 
This  is  the  reality  of  virtue,  virtue  as  it  exists  in  the  concrete. 

5.  But  love  to  God  is  not  only  the  chief  form  of  virtue:  it 
may  also  be  said  to  include  in  itself  all  forms  of  virtue,  to  be 
the  common,  real  principle  thereof. 

All  agree  that  love  to  God  and  love  to  man  include  all  the 

1  Compare  Mtiller  on  Sin,  vol.  i.,  The  Real  Principle  of  Holiness. 


230  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

virtues.  The  question  here  is  of  the  reduction  of  both  these  to 
the  common  principle  of  love  to  God.  It  is  favored  by  the 
following  considerations:  (a.)  "God  is  in  effect  being  in  gen- 
eral" (Edwards);  all  that  is,  is  from  Him  and  for  Him:  He 
is  the  author  and  end  of  the  whole  system,  (b.)  "The  real 
primary  ground  of  virtuous  love  to  man,"  as  Miiller  savs,  ia 
perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  is  made  in  the  divine 
image.  "  And  this  commandment  have  we  from  Him,  that  he 
who  loveth  God  love  his  brother  also."1  "Therewith  bless  we 
the  Lord  and  Father;  and  therewith  curse  we  men,  which  are 
made  after  the  likeness  of  God."2  (c.)  Holy  love  to  man  must 
have  ultimate  respect  to  him  in  his  relations  to  God,  and  to  his 
place  in  the  system  which  God  has  established,  (d.)  May  not 
all  our  private  affections  be  brought  under  this?  God  has 
established  in  his  system  these  relations :  of  family,  of  brother- 
hood, of  society,  of  the  state,  in  which  all  our  lesser  affections 
move.  Are  any  of  these  virtuous  except  as  they  respect  the 
whole  end  of  the  system  ?  Is  not  that  end  the  union  of  God 
and  men  in  holy  love  V  Moreover,  it  is  God  who  has  made  us 
capable  of  loving  in  these  connections,  and  therefore  all  love 
is  to  be  traced  to  Him.  (e.)  In  short,  from  supreme  love  to 
God  it  will  result,  necessarily  and  naturally,  that  we  love  the 
whole  system  He  has  ordained,  that  we  shall  love  all  in  the 
system  ultimately  in  its  relation  to  Him,  and  to  the  ends  which 
He  proposes  to  produce  by  means  of  the  system.  Love  to  God 
is  not  properly  the  co-ordinate  of  love  to  man,  but  is  the  cause 
of  love  to  man.  Loving  God,  we  shall  love  the  system  which 
He  has  established.  Our  own  holiness  is  manifested,  through 
doing  this:  in  seeking  and  doing  all  things  for  the  sake  of  God 
and  his  kingdom.  This  is  the  reality  of  the  moral  sphere. 
This  gives  us  the  proper  end  or  object,  as  well  as  the  highest 
motive:  the  end,  that  of  God — God  himself  and  the  end  which 
He  proposes  in  his  system;  the  motive,  love  to  Him.  This  at 
any  rate  is  the  reality  in  conscious  Christian  experience,  and 
not  love  to  any  abstract  ends.  And  this  best  agrees  with  the 
position,  that  all  real  love  moves  in  the  personal  sphere,  ali 
i  1  John  iv.  21.  2  james  m.  9. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  231 

moral  affection  moves  there.     The  highest  form  of  it  is  in  love 
to  the  highest  Person  and  to  his  ends  and  objects. 

6.  This,  which  is  the  highest  and  most  real  and  philosophical, 
is  also  the  simplest,  form  of  statement  for  the  reality  of  virtue. 
Is  there  any  true  virtue  which  has  not  its  root  and  ground  in 
love  to  God  ?     If  there  be,  a  pantheist  may  have  real  virtue. 

7.  This  best  agrees  with  the  Scriptural  views  of  the  moral 
law  and  of  holiness.     Our  Saviour  teaches:  "This  is  the  great 
and  first  commandment."     Holiness  in  the  Bible,  is  obedience 
to  the  divine  law,  from  love  to  the  Lawgiver.     The  law  is  from 
Him;  we  are  to  obey  from  love  to  Him;  He  commands  this  love 
first  of  all.     Transgression  is  against  God,  not  against  an  ab- 
stract system.     "  Against  thee,  thee  only."     Retribution  is  from 
God's  hand.1 

8.  The  real  statement,  then,  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  all 
true  virtue  would  be,  that  it  consists  in  love  to  God,  and  to  all 
other  beings  in  their  relations  to,  and  as  parts  of,  the  divine 
system  of  things. 

9.  The  connection  between  §  3  and  §  6 — the  deduction  or 
mode  of  deducing  this  principle,  as  the  real  one — may  be  stated 
in  this  way:  The  essence  of  virtue  is  in  "love  to  being,"  i.  e., 
is  in  love  to  all  beings,  according  to  their  relative  place  in  the 
whole  system  of  things,  and  with  ultimate  respect  to  their  high- 
est ends.     But  this  system  in  its  reality,  is  from  and  for  God; 
and  its  highest  ends  are,  the  divine  glory  in  the  holiness  of  the 
creatures.     Hence,  true  virtue,  as  real  in  the  system,  must  be 
love  to  God.     Or  again:  Virtue  is  love  to  all  good,  with  an  ulti- 
mate respect  to  the  highest  good.     But  this °nly  in  per- 
sons, only  in  a  system  of  personal  agents.     Virtue  then  is  love 
to  this  system.     But  this  system  is  from  and  for  God.     Hence, 
virtue  is  love  to  God,  essentially.     Or,  again:  Virtue  must  con- 
sist in  having  the  soul  accordant  with  Rectitude.    This  Rectitude 
is  embodied  in  the  law:  love  to  God  and  man.     This  law  is  di- 
vinely given,  completely  in  revelation:  it  is  the  disclosure  of 
God's  Nature,  the  expression  of  God's  Will.     Hence,  obedience 
to  the  divine  law,  from  love  to  the  Lawgiver,  is  true  virtue. 

1  See  Tayler  Lewis,  Bibl.  Ethics,  in  Bibl.  Kepos.,  July,  1848. 


232  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

OF  MAN'S  PERSONAL  RELATIONS  TO  THE  LAW  OF  GOD. 

The  subject  of  consideration  now  is,  MAN  AS  A  MORAL  AGENT  in 
a  more  specific  sense.  It  is,  THE  SEAT  OF  MORAL  CHARACTER  IN  MAN: 
THE  WILL  AND  AFFECTIONS  in  relation  to  Moral  Character. 

We  have  considered,  What  Man  is  in  the  constituents  of  his 
being;  what  is  the  Law  for  which  he  was  made;  what  it  enjoins 
and  has  respect  to,  viz.,  True  Holiness,  which  we  have  attempted 
to  describe  and  define:  we  come  now  to  consider  more  particu- 
larly, The  Relations  of  Man  to  this  Law. 

We  come  here  upon  the  more  difficult  subjects  of  Anthropology, 
where  there  has  been  the  greatest  diversity  of  opinion  and  stress 
of  conflict;  and  also,  as  a  result  of  the  conflict  and  to  increase 
the  difficulty,  the  greatest  diversity  in  the  usage  of  terms.  We 
have  no  doubt  that  there  has  been,  in  point  of  fact,  a  greater 
unity  of -real  belief,  among  the  orthodox,  than  would  appear  from 
their  conflicts.  In  respect  to  the  facts  of  the  case,  there  has  been 
more  harmony  than  in  the  use  of 'terms  by  which  the  facts  are 
expressed,  or  in  the  definitions  by  which  the  respective  ideas  are 
set  forth.  The  differences  are,  in  many  instances,  rather  philo- 
sophical than  in  matters  of  real,  substantial  faith.  Although 
the  tendencies  of  one  set  of  opinions  may  be  to  fundamentally 
false  views,  yet  those  who  have  advocated  the  opinions  may  not 
have  been  aware  of  these  tendencies. 

Remarks  as  to  the  Terms  used  and'tJieir  Definitions. 
1.  The  terms  used  in  respect  to  moral  government,  moral 
quality,  human  action,  the  law  of  God,  the  administration  of 
justice  under  that  law,  have  in  common  parlance,  in  theology 
and  in  philosophy,  a  two-fold  sense:  an  abstract  and  a  concrete, 
a  general  and  a  specific,  an  objective  and  subjective,  (some 
say,  a  proper  and  an  improper)  sense.  We  prefer  the  phraseology, 
general  or  specific.  The  general  (equivalent  to  the  abstract)  sense 
is  applied  in  all  our  judgments  about  laws,  institutions,  govern 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  233 

ments,  etc.,  according  as  these  are  conformed  or  not  conformed 
to  moral  ends  or  objects,  and  according  as  they  tend  to  produce 
or  not  to  produce  a  state  of  things  which  is  truly  moral.  The 
standard  of  judgment  here  is  their  conformity  or  non-conformity 
to  a  moral  standard  viewed  in  relation  to  its  ends  or  objects. 
It  is  not  like  a  mathematical  judgment:  it  is  essentially  a  judg- 
ment as  to  conformity  to  a  moral  idea  and  a  moral  end.  It 
differs  from  an  assthetic  judgment,  which  has  respect  simply 
to  beauty.  On  the  other  hand,  the  specific  application  is  simply 
to  moral  beings,  considered  as  the  subjects  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment, as  under  the  divine  law,  considered  as  conformed  or  not 
conformed  to  that  law,  as  their  state  corresponds  or  does  not 
correspond  with  the  law,  as  their  state  has  or  has  not  a  tendency 
to  bring  about,  or  a  harmony  with,  the  ends  of  that  law. 

2.  Again:  all  the  terms  used  in  respect  to  these  concrete 
cases,  to  this  subjective  conformity  or  non-conformity  to  the 
law,  have  at  least  a  three-fold  sense  and  application,  in  common 
life,  in  philosophy,  and  in  theology,  which  causes  the  perplex- 
ity and  difficulty  about  them,  to  wit:  (a.)  These  moral  terms  are 
applied  to  a  disposition,  tendency,  or  bias,  which  precedes  and 
is  the  ground  of  the  personal  activity,  preference,  or  choice. 
Some  call  this  a  state  of  the  will,  and  some  a  state -of  the  affec- 
tions, (b.)  They  are  sometimes  applied  to  a  spontaneous  outgo- 
ing of  the  soul  in  respect  to  moral  objects  or  ends.  This  again 
is  called  by  some  an  act  of  the  will ;  by  others,  an  act  or  action 
of  the  affections.1  (c.)  They  are  applied  to  a  deliberate  choice, 
where  the  soul  elects  between  two  objects,  knowing  the  two, 
pdging  between  the  two,  and  deciding  "with  full  power  to  the 
contrary  choice."  This,  in  the  great  question  of  choice  between 
God  and  an  inferior  good,  is  called  by  some,  prime  preference, 
generic  choice,  governing  purpose.  (Moral  terms  are  also  ap- 
plied to  specific  choices,  and  to  external  acts  even ;  but,  when 
so  applied,  it  is  only,  with  any  tolerable  thinker,  as  the  external 
act  and  specific  choice  are  supposed  to  contain  and  express  an 
antecedent,  already  existing,  general  preference  or  affection  of 
the  soul.)  Those  who  hold  to  the  legitimate  use  of  moral  terms 
1  Edwards  considers  this  to  be  of  the  will. 


234  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

in  the  first  sens .«,  of  course  hold  to  their  proper  use  in  the  other 
•two  senses.  A  man  may  hold  to  their  use  in  the  second  sense, 
and  deny  their  proper  use  in  the  first,  at  the  same  time  holding 
to  their  proper  use  in  the  third;  while  others  may  say  that  their 
only  proper  use  is  in  the  third  sense.  E.  g.,  Take  the  word  Sin. 
Some  say  that  it  can  be  applied  to  a  state  which  antedates  all 
conscious  acts;  that  there  may  be  a  state,  properly  sinful,  of 
human  nature,  before  even  the  spontaneous  movement  of  the 
eoul :  a  sinful  state  by  nature ;  and  they  say  that  the  word  sin 
can  be  properly  applied  to  that  state  before  any  action;  and 
that  we  can  apply  moral  judgments  to  that  state,  and  can  say 
that  it  exposes  the  being  having  it  to  the  divine,  displeasur« 
and  renders  liable  to  eternal  condemnation.  Others  say,  No; 
we  cannot  use  the  word  in  reference  to  any  previous  state,  but 
it  can  be  applied  to  the  first  activity  of  the  soul,  although  this 
may  be  purely  spontaneous,  although  it  be  an  affection  or  feel- 
ing, although  there  be  no  deliberate  choice,  and  this  first  act 
is  a  moral  act,  and  is  a  sinful  act.  (The  old  doctrine  of  Hop- 
kinsianism  and  of  Emmons.)  Then,  another  class  say  that  the 
word  sin  is  improperly  used  in  reference  to  a  native  condition  or 
spontaneous  preference.  It  can  be  used  only  where  there  is  de- 
liberate choice,  only  where  the  person  has  before  him  the  two 
ways,  and  has  full  and  equal  power  to  decide  for  the  one  or  the 
other,  and  only  to  such  acts  can  any  moral  judgment  be  applied 
by  God  or  man ;  and  if  we  apply  a  moral  term  to  any  other  cases, 
we  do  it  by  metaphor  and  not  strictly.  The  word  Holiness  has 
similar  variations  of  meaning.  Some  say  holiness  may  have 
been  concreated  in  Adam;  others  say,  No;  there  can  only  be 
holiness  in  activity,  either  spontaneous  or  voluntary  (this  is  the 
old  Hopkinsian  view);  others  again  say,  No;  we  can  only  speak 
of  holiness  where  there  has  been  choice  on  the  part  of  an  indi- 
vidual. Of  course  those  who  hold  this  position  cannot  consist- 
ently hold  that  holiness  is  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  same 
three-fold  usage,  in  respect  to  moral  ends,  obtains  with  the  terms, 
" disposition,"  "desire,"  "affection,"  "feelings,"  propensity,  prin- 
ciple, consent  of  heart;  but  the  discussions  have  turned  most 
upon  the  question  as  to  how  man's  state  before  the  law  of  God 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  235 

is  to  be  viewed.  The  law  commands  love  to  God ;  supreme  non- 
conformity in  a  moral  being  is  such  a  state  as  implies  preference 
for  something  else,  some  inferior  good,  and  of  course  the  absence 
of  love  to  God.  Now  this  state  is  one  of  non-conformity  to  the 
demands  of  the  law,  and  taken  as  a  state — of  destitution  of  love 
to  God  and  preference  of  something  else — it  is  viewed:  (1)  as 
connatural,  (2)  as  spontaneous  preference,  (3)  as  deliberate  choice, 
or  as  the  result  of  such  choice. 

3.  The  definitions  of  the  terms  relating  to  moral  states  differ 
according  to  the  ultimate  points  of  view  taken  in  making  the 
definition.  There  are  three  such  current  points  of  view,  vary- 
ing according  to  what  is  assumed  as  the  terminus  ad  quern. 

(a.)  Some  say  that  the  point  to  be  had  in  view,  or  the  last 
standard  to  which  all  definitions  are  to  be  referred,  is  Personal 
Choice,  an  act  of  the  Will.  Nothing  is  moral,  moral  predicates 
can  strictly  be  applied  to  nothing  which  is  not  an  act  of  choice, 
viz.,  of  choice  to  conform  or  not  to  conform  to  the  requisitions  of 
the  law.  All  that  is  moral,  religious,  holy,  is  essentially  an  act 
of  the  will,  nothing  else  can  be  such.  The  ultimate  respect  here 
is  to  the  causality  of  the  state  or  act :  it  is  caused  by  choice ;  its 
being  so  makes  it  moral.  Whatever — in  disposition,  tendency, 
or  state — does  not  come  strictly  under  personal  choice,  belongs 
simply  to  the  physical  sphere.  In  this  view  the  two  ideas,  moral 
and  choice,  are  inseparable ;  it  is  choice — of  a  moral  end — and 
that  alone  which  confers  moral  quality.  That  in  this  sphere 
the  moral  is  found,  nobody  denies :  the  question  is,  is  this  its 
exclusive  sphere?1 

(b.)  Another  point  of  view  is,  not  the  choice  as  the  cause  of 
the  state,  but  the  desert,  of  the  choice'  the  desert  of  an  act  under 
the  law;  its  worthiness  of  punishment  under  the  law.  For  ex- 
ample, sin  is  defined  as  that  which  is  worthy  of  everlasting 

1  Assuming  the  point  that  all  that  is  moral  is  in  personal  choice,  and  framing 
all  our  definitions  accordingly,— clean  work  can  be  made.  There  will  be  strictly 
no  original  sin,  only  a  physical  state;  atonement  will  be  not  under  the  law,  strictly; 
justification  will  be  pardon  simply,  with  a  figurative  representation  attached; 
God's  moral  government  will  be  simply  over  individual,  personal  agents,— will 
have  no  other  direct  sphere;  all  else  will  be  sovereignty  merely:  according  to  laws 
and  for  ends  not  distinctively  moral. 


236  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

punishment,  and  if  you  find  anything  of  moral  abnormity  which 
is  not  worthy  of  everlasting  punishment,  it  is  not  sin.  This 
conclusion  of  course  comes  because  you  have  limited  yourself 
in  the  definition. 

(c.)  The  ultimate  point  of  view  or  standard  is  taken,  not  in 
the  sphere  of  personal  choice,  or  in  the  desert  simply,  but  from 
the  internal  nature  of  the  state  of  a  moral  being,  considered  as 
conformed  or  not  conformed  to  the  ends  of  the  law.  This  is 
Edwards's  maxim  or  canon :  "  The  virtue  or  vice  of  a  disposition 
of  the  mind  lies  not  in  its  cause  but  in  its  nature."  Holiness  is 
holiness,  not  because  I  produce  it  by  an  act  of  the  will,  nor 
because  God  produces  it,  but  because  of  its  inherent  excellency, 
and  its  tending  to  produce  the  highest  good  of  the  universe. 
Sin  is  sin,  not  because  it  exists  through  my  volition,  but  from  its 
own  nature,  and  because  it  runs  counter  to,  and  if  left  to  itself 
would  annihilate,  God's  moral  government.  Therefore  we  should 
define  sin  and  holiness,  not  by  what  produces  them  nor  by  what 
they  produce,  but  by  their  own  nature. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OF  THE  SEAT  OF  MORAL  CHARACTER.   THE  WILL. 

General  Proposition.  What  is  moral  in  man,  as  a  subject  of 
the  divine  government,  is  not  found  in  his  external  actions,  pri- 
marily or  strictly;  nor  in  his  instinctive  desires  and  affections, 
considered  in  and  by  themselves  in  respect  to  their  appropriate 
objects.  Nor  is  it  found  in  his  intellectual  activities  exercised 
on  their  appropriate  objects.  Nor,  again,  is  it  found  ultimately 
in  the  executive  acts  of  the  will  considered  as  the  choice  of  means 
to  an  ultimate  end;  nor  in  any  single  native  disposition,  which 
does  not  imply  a  respect  to  a  single  ultimate  end. 

All  of  these  acts  and  dispositions  may  be  exercised  in  a  moral 
way;  they  may  become  moral;  perhaps  they  are  never  exercised 
when  there  is  not  a  moral  aim  included  in  them,  determining 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  237 

them:  but  they  are  not  by  themselves  moral;  the  seat  of  the 
moral  quality  is  not  in  them.  What  is  moral  in  man  is  only  to 
be  found  in  the  affections  or  the  will,  or  both,  considered  as  con- 
formed or  not,  to  some  one  ultimate  end,  to  the  highest  good.1 
(K  g.,  I  give:  there  is  the  external  act, — not  moral;  the  percep- 
tion oi  the  object,  an  intellectual  act, — not  moral; — from  natural 
sympathy,  as  impulse, — not  moral; — from  choice  to  give,  the  act 
being  determined  upon  from  this  impulse, — not  the  ultimate 
seat  of  what  is  moral  in  the  proceeding; — from  love  to  man, — if 
it  stops  there,  no  true  virtue ; — from  a  lore  to  man  which  is  ex- 
pressive of  a  general  love  to  all  good  and  ultimately  to  the  best 
good, — this  is  "  true  virtue.") 

In  moral  states  and  actions  giving  rise  to  moral  character,  the 
soul,  the  man,  or  the  person,  is  considered  as  having  relation  to 
moral  ends,  to  the  uU^mate  moral  end.  All  the  soul  is  brought 
under  view;  what  is  moral  resides  in  that  which  is  and  must  be 
a  centred,  definite  tendency  or  act;  all  of  the  power  of  the  soul 
must  be  in  it,  converging  upon  it.  What  is  moral  in  man  is,  in 
short,  the  condition  of  a  moral  being,  in  relation  to  the  great  end 
of  his  being,  as  conformed  or  not  conformed  thereto;  and  that 
condition  must  be  in  the  affections  or  the  will,  one  or  both. 

§  1.   Of  the  Idea  of  the  WiU. 

The  position  of  the  Will,  psychologically,  in  man  is  this: 
There  is  (a.)  human  nature,  (6.)  with  its  state,  its  general 
condition,  its  generic  biases  and  tendencies:  or,  (1)  the  en- 
dowments of  reason,  feeling,  conscience,  and  affections,  (2)  in  a 
certain  connatural  condition,  i.  e.,  having  a  constituted  relation 
to  certain  ends  (the  "tendencies"  of  man),  (3)  centering  in  a 
distinct  individuality  or  person — an  ego.  This  person,  now,  with 
these  general  constituents,  which  he  has  in  common  with  the  race, 
considered  as  having  capacity  of  choice,  or  as  putting  forth  power 
especially  in  the  form  of  choice  or  choosing,  is  what  we  mean  by 
Witt,  in  its  most  general  sense.  ("  The  conative  powers,"  Ham- 

1  Query.     Is  the  seat  of  moral  quality  in  the  affections  ? 

Is  the  seat  of  personal  responsibility  in  the  will  ? 
In  Immanent  preference  there  is  union  of  will  and  affections. 


238  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ilton.)  The  man  choosing,  the  person  choosing — is  Will.  The 
will  is  not  anything  distinct  from  the  person;1  it  «  the  person 
himself,  considered  as  acting  or  as  having  the  power  of  acting 
in  a  certain  way,  the  way  of  choosing.  The  distinctive  and  only 
function  of  the  will  is  choice.  Where  there  is  choice  there  is 
will,  and  where  there  is  not  there  is  no  will.  Choice  is  a  simple 
ultimate  fact,  like  feeling.  We  cannot  resolve  it  into  anything 
simpler:  if  we  could,  the  will  would  not  be  a  distinct  faculty.  It 
implies  always  some  object  or  end,  and  of  course  the  object  or 
end  chosen  is  always  distinct  from  objects  or  ends  not  chosen. 
There  is  always  in  that  sense  an  alternative.  It  does  not  seem 
to  be  necessary  that  there  should  be  conscious  knowledge  of  any 
other  object.  The  choice  may  be  distinct  and  perfect  with  only 
one  object  in  view.  We  need  not  have  two  objects  in  view  in 
order  to  choose  God,  but  might  choose  Him  directly  from  a  per- 
ception of  his  glorious  character.  But  the  choice  of  God  implies 
that  we  do  not  choose  an  inferior  object,  and,  as  far  as  the  power 
of  choice  goes,  it  implies  that  there  was  something  else  which 
might  have  been  chosen,  or,  at  least,  it  implies  the  capacity  for 
choosing  something  else. 

§  2.  Of  the  Power  of  the  Will 

Man,  acting  as  will,  choosing,  is  an  efficient  cause;  among 
second  causes  in  this  world,  the  chief:  a  dependent,  but  real, 
cause.  There  is  a  proper  causal  efficiency  in  every  act  of  choice.* 
Power  is  an  attribute  of  cause :  it  is  the  distinctive  attribute  of 
an  efficient  cause :  it  is  that  in  the  cause  which  gives  it  its  effi- 
ciency in  respect  to  any  particular  end  or  object.  A  man  wills 
to  move  his  foot,  and  there  is  an  efficiency  in  the  choice.  The 
power  of  the  will  is  not  distinct  from  the  power  of  the  man :  but 

1  It  is  a  great  misconception,  that  the  will  only  acts  after  the  other  powers:  it 
acts  in  and  through  them,  putting  forth  energy.     The  mistake  here  arises  from 
the  arrangement  of  topics  in  popular  text-boots.     See  Archb.  Manning,  Contemp. 
Rev.,  Jan.  1871,  on  the  Relation  of  Will  to  Thought,  in  fixing  the  mind,  atten- 
tion, etc.     He  conducts  the  argument  against  materialists. 

2  Pres.  Day,  in  discussing  this  point,  which  is  urged  by  some  Arminians 
against  Edwards,  says,  that  nobody  denies  that  a  man  is  the  author  of  his  own 
acts.    Edwards,  the  same.    There  is  an  article  in  the  Princeton  Review,  Jan.  1857, 
showing  that  the  highest  Calvinistic  view  is  not  inconsistent  with  this  position. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF     REDEMPTION.  239 

through  the  will  the  power  of  the  man  is  exerted,  so  far  as 
power  is  involved  in  choice.  Power  is  seen  in  all  conscious 
energy  •  attention,  fixed  feeling,  as  well  as  in  choice. 

§  3.   Of  Self-determination. 

This  is  one  of  the  points  in  debate  between  Calvinists  and 
Arminians.  Edwards  discusses  it  fully,  and  with  particular  refer- 
ence to  the  Arminian  definitions  of  his  day. 

I. — The  self-determining  power  of  the  will.  By  this  is  meant, 
a  power  in  the  will  to  determine  itself  by  its  own  act  alone. 
This  is  a  fiction,  an  absurdity,  involving  the  contradiction  that 
it  at  the  same  time  is  and  is  not.  Edwards  argues  against  it, 
showing  that  if  it  could  be  at  all,  it  must  be  in  one  of  two  ways, 
both  of  which  involve  absurdities:  (1)  By  choosing  to  choose, 
which  implies  always  a  choice  before  a  choice,  arid  requires  the 
assumption  of  an  infinite  series  of  choices.  All  that  the  will  does 
is,  to  choose.  The  will  does  not  "  determine  itself  by  its  own 
acts":  it  simply  determines;  or  (2)  The  will  is  determined  by 
nothing  at  all,  and  here  we  have  an  equal  absurdity:  pure 
"liberty  of  contingence,"  without  motives.1 

II. — There  is  another  sense  in  which  the  phrase,  Self-deter- 
mining Power  or  Self-determination  is  used  (with  which  the 
first  is  often  confounded),  in  which  it  expresses  a  real  fact,  viz., 
that  the  self  or  person,  through  and  by  his  choice,  is  determined, 
is  in  a  state  of  determination,  to  some  ultimate  end.  This  is  ex- 
pressive of  a  fact  about  the  mind  which  is  always  true  and  real. 
So  far  as  consciousness  extends,  we  know  ourselves  to  be  in  such 
a  state,  in  such  a  moral  condition  of  self-determination  (not 
speaking  now  of  how  it  came  to  be,  or  of  how  it  may  come  to  be, 
but  simply  of  the  fact).  There  are  two  forms  of  such  ultimate 
self-determination  of  a  moral  being,  viz.,  for  evil  or  for  good, 

*[See  Prof.  Smith's  Review  of  Whedon  on  the  Will,  in  the  volume,  Faith  and 
Philosophy,  p.  369.  "  We  do  not  contest  that  motives  are  the  occasional  and  final, 
and  not  the  efficient  causes  of  volition." 

Also,  p.  368.  "  Freedom  (as  denned  by  some  modern  Arminians)  consists  in 
....  the  'unrestricted  power'  of  'putting  forth  a  different  volition.'  And  this 
power  is  not  merely  the  'natural  ability'  conceded  by  the  school  of  Edwards,  but 
....  a  creative  energy.  Arminianism,  ..- .  .  .  is  coming  to  represent  the  will's 
action  as  that  of  pure  causality  in  the  form  of  a  creative  act.  '] 


240  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

tor  God  or  against  God,  for  the  ends  of  the  law  or  against  those 
ends.     These  are  our  highest  moral  states. 

§  4.  Modes  of  the  Will's  Action. 

Not  to  mention  others,  there  are  two  chief  modes:  (1)  Its 
agency  in  the  form  of  single  volitions  or  executive  acts;  (2)  In 
the  form  of  ultimate  preference,  or  immanent  preference,  which 
is  internal. 

I. — Of  the  will  as  the  power  of  single  volitions.  In  all  such 
cases,  the  character  of  the  act  is  this:  the  will  as  cause,  by  its 
act,  which  is  a  single  volition,  produces  an  efiect  outside  of,  and 
distinct  from,  itself.  These  are  executive  acts  of  the  will,  in 
relation  to  something  to  be  done  or  not  done,  in  relation  to  one 
external  object  or  end  rather  than  another;  and  such  executive 
acts  are  the  common  sphere  of  freedom — of  all  civil  and  religious 
liberty;  the  term  freedom  is  usually  employed  with  reference  to 
such  acts.  The  liberty  of  the  will  here  consists  in  the  power  of 
doing  as  one  pleases,  the  power  of  carrying  out  unhindered  what 
one  purposes,  in  freedom  from  coaction  and  from  necessity. 
Deliberate  and  imperative  acts  terminate  in  some  action,  which 
we  believe  to  be  in  our  power.  This  is  not  the  best  part  of  free- 
dom, or  true  spiritual  freedom,  but  it  is  the  full  sense  of  free- 
dom in  regard  to  the  executive  acts  of  the  will.1  It  appears  to 
be  a  defect  in  Edwards's  treatise  that  he  makes  this  the  whole 
of  freedom.  Aristotle  (Eth.  iii.  2,  translated  here  by  Archb. 
Manning)  says:  "Deliberate  preference  appears  to  be  voluntary, 
but  not  to  be  the  same  as  the  voluntary,  for  voluntary  is  more 
extensive;  because  both  children  and  other  beings  share  the  vol- 
ur.iary,  but  not  deliberate  choice." 

II. — The  will's  action  as  Immanent  Preference.  Muller:  "As 
I  am,  so  I  will,  and  as  I  will,  so  I  am."  This  is  the  immanent 
preference,  the  wholly  internal  mode  of  the  will's  action :  in  which 
direct  respect  is  not  had  to  objects,  to  doing  or  not  doing,  but 
to  some  ultimate  moral  end  or  object,  which  is  preferred.  Im- 

1  See  Dr.  Kichards's  Lectures  on  the  Will,  for  the  distinction  between  execu- 
tive and  immanent,— upon  the  whole  the  best  statement.  Dr.  Woods,  in  his  Lec- 
tures, uses  will  almost  wholly  in  the  sense  of  executive  volition,  and  puts  into 
the  sphere  of  the  affections  the  immanent  preference. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  241 

iiianent  preference  is  the  choice  of  some  ultimate  supreme  moral 
end.  In  it  the  choice  and  the  motive  blend.  We  cannot  say 
here  that  the  motive  is  the  cause  and  the  choice  is  the  effect, 
nor  that  the  choice  is  the  cause  and  the  state  of  preference  is 
the  effect, — the  one  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other.  They  are  con- 
current and  inseparable:  the  motive  becomes  the  choice.  E.  g., 
God  is  before  the  soul,  and  the  soul  chooses  God.  The  motive 
is  what  is  in  God:  the  soul  by  its  immanent  preference  chooses 
God,  and  that  motive  becomes  its  controlling  principle  in  and  by 
the  choice.  This  is  the  sphere  of  love,  of  moral  love,  the  love 
of  some  moral  end.  This  action  of  the  will,  in  distinction  from 
executive  acts,  has  not  reference  to  anything  external.  It  does 
not  produce  an  effect  distinct  from  itself.  The  choice  becomes 
the  state  of  the  will.  Such  a  preference  is  free  in  its  very  na 
ture,  free  because  it  is  a  choice,  free  as  every  one  who  has  it 
knows.  This  is  the  sphere  of  the  spontaneity  of  the  will  in  its 
moral  acts.  The  choice  here  becomes  a  permanent  state  of  the 
will.  In  an  executive  act,  the  choice  passes  away  with  the  end 
gained.  In  immanent  preference,  the  choice  stays,  and  is  the 
character:  it  is  the  highest  freedom,  internal  freedom.  The 
will,  as  bare  power  of  choice,  cannot  beget  such  a  state.1 

Some  further  differences  between  the  immanent  preference 
and  executive  acts  are:  In  the  immanent  preference  are  virtue 
and  vice :  it  is  their  seat ;  in  the  executive  acts,  virtue  and  vice 
are  found  only  derivatively;  the  immanent  preference  is  spon- 
taneous, the  executive  acts  are  deliberate;  the  immanent  pref- 
erence includes  the  affections,  the  executive  acts  express  the 
affections,  are  prompted  by  them. 

There  is  both  freedom  to  choose  and  freedom  in  choice. 
The  former  is  the  liberum  arbitrium.  The  latter  is  the  real  free- 
dom, voluntas.  "  We  must  not  merely  will  to  be  good,  we  must 
have  a  good  will"  (Muller).  The  analysis  is  ultimate:  Imma- 
nent preference  is  love:  in  the  love  both  the  motive  and  the 
choice  are  included.  Immanent  preference  is  a  state  of  the 
will :  the  will  can  be  and  is  in  a  state  of  permanent  choice. 
1  See  later,  under  the  head  of  Motives, 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  5.   Of  the  Liberty  or  Freedom  of  the  Witt. 

I. — The  General  Notion  of  Freedom.  Freedom  is  an  attribute 
of  the  will,  essential  to  it.  External  freedom  is  the  liberty  to 
do  as  one  pleases;  iuternal  or  true  freedom  is  found  in  choice, 
and  in  nothing  else  or  less.  This  freedom  is  simple,  ultimate, 
and  indefinable.  It  implies  freedom  to  an  act,  freedom  from 
an  act  (need  not  do  it),  freedom  in  an  act, — exemption  and 
choice,  both.  Wherever  there  is  choice  there  is  freedom.  Choice 
cannot  be  forced,  though  the  external  compliance  may  be.  Free- 
dom in  choice  is  the  fact:  this  is  much  neglected  by  Arminians,  in 
their  statements  as  to  the  will.  This  freedom  is  not  found  in 
power  to  the  contrary,  though  we  do  not  say  that  freedom  does 
not  involve  this  in  some  important  sense,  does  not  imply  some 
residuary  power.  Freedom  is  not  found  in  anything  we  do  not 
do,  in  any  power  we  do  not  exert,  but  simply  in  the  power  we 
do  exert  in  choosing.  Those  who  define  freedom  as  power  to  the 
contrary  fall  into  the  singular  anomaly  of  implying  that  freedom 
is  in  a  power  that  is  never  exerted;  and  of  course  nobody  can 
know  anything  about  it.  As  soon  as  it  is  exerted,  it  ceases  to 
be;  it  is  then  the  power  which  is  exercised. 

II. — This  freedom  [in  reference  to  what  is  external,  objective, 
outside,l~\  implies  always  the  possibility  of  election  between  dif- 
ferent objects,  deliberate  choice.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
this  is  all  upon  which  the  election  depends,  but  as  far  as  the 
will  goes  the  freedom  is  the  possibility  of  a  different  election. 
Of  this  we  suppose  men  are  distinctly  conscious,  and  it  is  only 
on  this  supposition  that  there  is  the  possibility  of  a  change  in 
our  moral  character,  of  the  regeneration  of  the  soul.  Keal  free- 
dom is  attained  on  the  basis  of  this  formal  freedom. 

III.— This  freedom  does  not  imply  what  has  been  called  the 
liberty  of  indifference,  in  its  technical  sense :  by  which  is  meant 
that  the  will,  in  order  to  be  free,  must  be  balanced  entirely  be- 
tween the  two  opposite  poles  of  choice,  with  an  absence  of  any 
previous  inclination.  It  has  been  said  that  the  will  is  like  the 
pivot  in  the  scale-beam,  perfectly  even  between  the  two  scales. 
But  will  is  different  from  the  pivot,  because  it  is  the  will  which 
J[In  some  statements  by  the  author  the  clan«a  in  brackets  is  omitted.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  243 

moves.  The  will  goes  down  the  scale.  Some1  assert  that  there 
is  no  such  influence  in  existence  as  that  of  motives,  and  when 
we  ask  "  What  then  determines  the  will?  "  the  reply  is  "Noth- 
ing at  all.  It  begins  to  be  and  it  comes  to  pass,  and  that  is  all 
we  can  say  about  it."  Against  such  liberty  of  indifference  Ed- 
wards argues,  showing  that  on  such  a  supposition  all  free  action 
is  taken  at  random  and  becomes  hap-hazard,2  and  that  an  act 
could  have  no  possible  moral  value  if  we  were  indifferent. 

IV. — Nor  does  liberty  involve  the  contingency  of  volitions. 
An  event  is  said  to  be  contingent,  (1)  when  it  depends  as  an 
effect  upon  its  cause,  so  that  if  the  cause  be  absent,  the  effect 
will  not  exist,  but  in  this  sense  nobody  would  deny  the  contin- 
gency of  a  volition ;  (2)  in  reference  to  our  knowledge  and  igno- 
rance, but  this  sense  is  not  in  the  discussion ;  (3)  when  there  is 
a  real  uncertainty  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  and  this  is  the  sense 
in  which  the  contingency  of  volitions  is  affirmed  by  Arminians' 
and  denied  by  Calvinists.  We  have  already  considered  this 
under  Divine  Providence. 

V. — The  distinction  between  formal  and  real  freedom  (Mul- 
ler  on  Sin,  ii.  ch.  1).  Formal  freedom  is  that  freedom  which  one 
has  as  endued  with  the  capacity  of  bare  choice,  with  the  possi- 
bility of  electing  between  two  or  more  objects.  This  is  given  in 
the  abstract  nature,  in  the  very  idea,  of  choice,  or  of  the  will,  as 
power  of  choice.  It  is  inalienable  from  the  will;  it  cannot  be 
destroyed  without  destroying  will.  Power  of  choice  implies  that 
so  far  as  the  wiU  goes*  in  the  presence  of  two  or  more  objects, 
there  is  the  possibility  of  selecting  the  one  or  the  other.  Real 
freedom  is  found  in  the  choice  itself;  in  any  given  choice  my  free- 
dom is  actualized;  in  the  choice,  the  thing  chosen,  I  am  free. 

But  in  respect  to  this  there  is  another  fact  to  be  noticed,  viz., 
that  not  in  all  moral  choices  is  there  real  conscious  freedom.  It 

'  AsBledsoe. 

'["Choice  for  reasons  lies  between  caprice  and  fatalism;  it  is  in  contrast  with 
chance,  rather  than  cognate  with  necessity."  Faith  and  Philosophy,  378. J 

3  Some  endeavor  to  make  a  fourth  meaning  for  "contingent,"  viz.,  that  which 
may  take  place  without  a  cause.  When  the  West.  Conf.  says,  "the  contingency 
of  second  causes  is  not  thereby  taken  away,"  etc.,  contingency  is  used  in  the  sec« 
ond  sense  in  the  above  enumeration,  as  is  shown  by  the  proof-text  cited. 

*  It  may  not  be  able  to  SLO  *•->  far  as  to  procure  or  attain  the  objects. 


244  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  a  part  of  inward  experience  that  we  feel  ourselves  really  fret 
("free  indeed,"  John  viii.  36),  only  in  loving  and  serving  God, 
only  in  love.  So,  gifted  men  are  "free"  in  the  productions  of 
genius,  in  acting  out  the  inmost  self;  still  higher  is  the  free- 
dom of  true  love.  The  choice  of  sin  is  a  bondage.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly the  Scriptural  position.  If  there  is  no  higher  freedom 
than  formal,  all  our  religious  states,  our  highest  moral  states, 
are  excluded  from  its  sphere,  and  all  character. 

Yet,  formal  freedom  always  remains.  It  is  not  exhausted 
in,  or  restricted  to,  any  one  preference,  any  immanent  prefer- 
ence, though  the  immanent  preference  may  be  so  strong  that 
we  never  think  of  the  formal  freedom. 

VI. — Of  the  limits  of  human  freedom.  Man's  freedom  is  not 
absolute:  the  freedom  of  none  but  God  can  be.  As  man  is  de- 
pendent, his  freedom  must  be  consistent  with  dependence,  it  must 
be  the  freedom  of  a  dependent  being.  As  man  is  under  laws, 
his  freedom  must  be  limited  by,  and  consistent  with,  that  fact. 
It  must  be  consistent  with  the  divine  government  and  purposes, 
with  the  certainty  of  election,  regeneration,  perseverance,  through 
the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  with  the  Divine  Sovereignty  in 
all  its  modes.  We  are  free  from  all  physical  necessity  in  the 
mode  of  the  mind's  action ;  but  we  are  not  free  from  the  regular 
laws  of  the  mind's  action :  we  are  free  in  these.  We  are  not  free 
from  moral  causes  and  effects,  though  we  may  be  free  in  them. 

Another  statement  of  the  limits  of  the  power  of  the  will. 

It  is  not  infinite  nor  absolute.  It  is  not  disconnected  from 
the  other  powers  of  the  mind,  nor  from  God,  nor  from  nature. 
The  will  acts  in,  with,  and  by  all  these.  More  particularly — 

1.  It  cannot  act  without  a  motive. 

2.  It  cannot  choose  two  contrary  or  incompatible  things  at 
once. 

3.  In  one  sense  of  "power" — possibility,  it  may  choose  either; 
in  another  sense — energy,  it  may  be  that  it  may  not. 

4.  It  must  always  act  within  the  laws  of  the  world,  of  the 
body,  etc. 

5.  It  cannot  directly  control  or  change  the  emotions. 

6.  Its  freedom  must  be  consistent  with  the  prevalence  of  law. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  245 

and  with  the  certainty  of  moral  acts,  and  also  with  the  sover- 
eignty and  prescience  of  God. 

7.  Its  freedom  must  be  consistent  with  the  fact  of  its  always 
choosing  that  which  in  the  view  of  the  mind  is  most  desirable 

§  6.   Of  the  Will  and  Motives. 

The  position  that  the  will  acts  according  to  motives  is  no 
other  than  the  position  that  man  acts  according  to  laws;  if  man 
does,  the  will  does:  for  the  will  is  the  instrument  of  all  human 
activity.  On  this  general  basis  is  maintained  the  proposition— 
That  the  will  in  its  choice,  or — better — the  man  in  his  choice  ia 
effectually  influenced  by  motives. 

I. — The  sources  of  proof  of  this  proposition. 

1.  If  it  were  not  triio,  there  could  be  no  possibility  of  human 
government.     Human  laws,  with  their  rewards  and  penalties, 
imply  it.     It  is  implied  in  the  whole  action  and  working  of  hu- 
man society. 

2.  We  judge  others  upon  this  basis.     We  ask,  why  did  a 
man  do  so  and  so?     We  always  state  some  ground,  reason,  or 
motive  for  the  action,  and  when  we  want  men  to  take  a  certain 
course,  we  ply  them  with  motives,  and  knowing  what  motives 
influence  men,  we  can  sometimes  predict  what  they  will  do. 

3.  The  appeals  of  the  gospel  presuppose  that  the  mind  is 
effectually  influenced  by  motives. 

4.  It  is  evident  from  the  doctrines  of  the  divine  providence 
and  foreknowledge.     These  imply  a  plan  and  regular  order  of 
God  which  is  carried  on  by  human  agents,  which  could  not  be 
unless  they  acted  according  to  some  general  order  in  the  divine 
plan.     Foreknowledge  is  inconceivable  without  certainty  in  the 
mode  of  human  action. 

5.  We  not  only  believe  this  of  others,  but  believe  it  of  our- 
selves.    When  we  want  to  give  a  reason  for  any  action,  we  go 
back  to  the  motive,  the  inducement;  and  we  are  conscious  that 
we  have  thus  ever  been  influenced  by  motives.     We  have  the 
direct  witness  of  consciousness. 

6.  We  cannot  conceive  it  to  be  otherwise.     We  cannot  con- 
ceive of  an  action  without  a  motive.     Such  an  action  is  a  mere 


246  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

abstraction.  It  is  an  action  without  an  object,  bare  action,  bare 
purpose,  and  nothing  purposed;  for  if  there  is  anything  purposed, 
that  is  the  motive. 

From  these  considerations  we  reach  the  general  conclusion 
that  the  will  is  influenced  by  motives.1  The  question  still  re« 
mains,  how  far? 

II.  What  is  a  Motive  ?     Motives  are  divided  generally  into 
two  classes,  internal  and  external :  all  the  objects  without,  which 
have  relation  to  us,  which  we  can  know  or  desire  as  a  good,  and 
all  the  responses  within.     Ultimately,  however,  all  motives  are 
internal.     They  are  motives  only  as  they  influence  some  internal 
susceptibility.     Edwards:  "Motive  is  the  whole  of  that  which 
causes,  excites,  incites  the  mind,  to  volition."     Hamilton:  "Mo- 
tive abstractly  considered,  is  no  other  than  end  or  final  cause, 
that  for  which,  or  in  view  of  which,   the  mind  acts.     But  a 
motive  in  its  concrete  reality  is  nothing  apart  from  the  mind 
itself.     It  is  a  mental  tendency."     A  motive  thus  in   relation 
to  this  discussion — to  bring  it  down  to  the  point  for  which  we 
wish  to  use  the  word — may  be  defined :  The  final  state  of  the 
man  in  the  indivisible  instant  before  choice,  having  relation  to 
that  choice. 

III.  Are  motives  in  this  sense  the  efficient  cause  of  volition? 
Edwards  in  discussing  this  point  says:   "An  appearing  most 
agreeable  to  the  mind  or  pleasing  to  the  mind  and  the  mind's 
preferring  and  choosing  seem  hardly  to  be   distinct."     In  our 
view,  this  is  the  least  satisfactory  passage  in  Edwards's  treatise 
on  the  Will.2     In  this  view  the  motive  would  be  the  efficient  and 
not  merely  the  occasional  cause  of  volition.     The  real  relation 
of  the  two  is,  that  the  motive  is  the  proper  occasional,  and  the 

1  "If  to  break  loose  from  the  conduct  of  reason  be  liberty,  true  liberty,  mad- 
men and  fools  are  the  only  freemen;  but  yet,  I  think,  nobody  would  choose  to  bo 
mad  for  the  sake  of  such  liberty,  but  he  that  is  mad  already."    Locke,  Essay,  ii. 
21,  50.     Hamilton:  "The  determination  by  motive  cannot,  to  our  understanding, 
escape  from  necessitation."     "How  the  will  can  possibly  be  free,  must  remain  to 
us,  under  the  present  limitation  of  our  faculties,  wholly  inconceivable."     "How 
moral  liberty  is  possible  in  man  or  God,  we  are  utterly  unable  speculatively  to 
understand."    Descartes  also  thought  that  a  solution  of  this  difficulty  lies  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  human  faculty. 

2  Compare  Pres.  Day's  exposition,  pp.  25,  77. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  247 

will  is  the  efficient,  cause.  If  the  motive  is  made  the  efficient 
cause,  it  seems  impossible  to  save  freedom. 

IV.  Do  motives  determine  the  will  ?  To  say  that  motives  de- 
termine the  will,  is  a  different  thing  from  saying  that  the  motive 
is  the  efficient  cause  of  the  mind's  choices.  Edwards  puts  the 
question  in  this  shape.  By  "determination  of  the  will"  he 
means,  "determining  the  will  to  be  one  way  rather  than  another," 
"  causing  that  the  act  of  choice  should  be  thus  and  not  other- 
wise," "  determining  to  one  act  among  various  acts."  Deter- 
mination, as  here  used,  is  direction  and  not  efficiency.  Motive 
is  not  that  which  causes  the  choice,  but  is  that  which  determines 
the  direction  of  the  choice.  The  general  reason  why  the  mind 
determines,  is  that  it  is  an  agent:  why  the  mind  chooses,  is  that  it 
has  the  power  of  choice ;  but  the  reason  why  the  mind  chooses 
one  way  rather  than  another,  this  thing  rather  than  that,  is 
different.  We  must  distinguish  here,  the  efficient,  the  final,  and 
the  occasional  cause.  The  agent,  the  mind  choosing,  is  the  effi- 
cient ;  the  final  cause  is  the  end  or  object  in  view  of  the  mind ; 
and  the  occasional  cause  perhaps  may  be  said  to  be,  that  object 
as  it  influences  the  desires,  etc.,  before  the  act  of  choice.  The 
algebraic  expression  here  would  be:  Will -f  Motive  =  Volition  or 
Choice. 

V. — In  this  sense  of  the  determination  of  the  will,  is  it  a  law 
of  the  will's  action,  that  it  always  acts  according  to  the  stronger 
or  strongest  motive  ?  By  law  here  is  meant,  general  fact,  fact 
of  induction,  not  an  a  priori  necessity.  The  question  here  is 
one  of  fact,  and  not  of  mere  theory.  What  is  the  strongest  mo- 
tive ?  It  is  not  that  which  is  intrinsically  the  strongest,  be- 
cause then  virtue  would  always  be  the  strongest  motive;  but 
that  was  never  meant  in  this  discussion.1  But  the  strongest 
motive  is  that  which  appears  most  desirable  to  the  mind  at  the 
instant  preceding  actual  choice.  Not  that  which  is  the  strong- 
est objectively,  in  itself,  but  in  itself  in  relation  to  us  and  our 
state.  Again:  the  assertion  is  not  that  the  strongest  motive 
must  carry  the  will,  but  simply,  that  it  does.  It  is  not  an  asser- 

1  Yet  this  objection  has  been  often  made,  e.  g.,  by  Dr.  Bushnell  in  Nature  and 
The  Supernatural. 


248  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

kion  as  to  what  it  is  possible  for  the  will  to  do,  or  whether  the 
will  as  an  abstract  possibility  might  make  a  different  choice, 
but  as  to  what  the  will  actually  does. 
Arguments  for  this  position. 

1.  Consciousness.    We  cannot  recall  any  actual  choice  which 
we  did  not  make  according  to  the  strongest  immediate  induce- 
ment. 

2.  In  the  rational  view  of  choice,  in  conceiving  it  as  a  rational 
act,  this  law  is  necessary.     Leibnitz:  "To  suppose  a  man  acting 
from  the  weaker  and  against  the  stronger  motive,  is  to  suppose 
a  man  acting  against  himself." 

3.  If  this  be  not  so,  then,  so  far  as  we  can  conceive,  there 
is  no  certainty  of  action,  there  is  no  conceivable  mode  of  the 
divine  government.     We  do  not  say  that  God  could  not  gov- 
ern  without    this,    but    that    we    cannot    see    how    He    could 
govern  rational  beings,  unless  through  this  general  law.     This 
is    the    main    argument    of   Edwards.     God   cannot    foreknow 
what  is  not    certain.     Arminianism   says:    We   do   not   know 
how  God  knows.     True;  but  if  an  event  in  space  and  time 
is  wholly  fortuitous,  by  the  very  mode  of  statement  the  divine 
knowledge  is  excluded. 

Objections  to  the  position : 

1.  Such  is  the  variety  of  motives  that  we  cannot  compare 
them,  so  as  to  say,  one  is  stronger  than  another.     There  are  mo- 
tives, e.  g.,  drawn  from  the  sphere  of  obligation;  and  others,  from 
the  sphere  of  desire :  and  these  we  cannot  compare,  as  there  ia 
no  common  term.     We  cannot  say  that  the  one  is  stronger,  for  it 
is  in  a  different  sphere.     The  reply  is  in  the  consideration  that 
all  motives  assume  the  form,  the  general  form,  of  desire:  i.  e., 
all  motives  affect  the  sensibilities  and  therefore  they  may  be 
compared.     This  objection1  is  merely  an  evasion  of  the  state- 
ment that,  as  matter  of  fact,  the  will  is  as  the  strongest  motive. 

2.  The  will  is  not  under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  is  out  of 
space  and  time.     The  reply  is  that  neither  part  of  this  objection 
is  true:  the  latter  is  most  certainly  not  true.     To  our  view,  the 
former  is  inconceivable.     Every  event  or  change  of  existence  im- 

1  It  is  much  dwelt  upon  by  Upham  and  others. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  249 

plies  a  cause:  that  is  an  ultimate,  rational  truth  The  will  is  not 
under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  in  the  sense  of  physical  cause 
and  effect:  no  one  pretends  this;  but  the  law  of  cause  and  effect 
must  run  through  the  will,  because  the  law  covers  every  change 
of  existence  in  time:  it  declares  that  every  such  change  must  have 
a  cause.  This  is  not  saying  what  the  cause  is,  not  that  it  is  all  in 
the  motives  or  all  elsewhere.  That  all  the  cause  of  its  action  is 
not  outside  of  itself,  is  true. 

3.  The  position  is  said  to  involve  reasoning  in  a  circle:  the 
motive  is  called  the  strongest,  because  it  prevails:  and  it  pre- 
vails, because  it  is  the  strongest.  The  reply  is,  that  the  objec- 
tion does  not  lie  against  the  argument  from  consciousness,  where 
we  put  the  force  of  the.  proof.  Consciousness  tells  us  that  the 
motive  prevails  because  it  is  the  strongest.  We  find  out,  to  be 
sure,  that  it  prevails  by  prevailing.  But  what  we  find  out  by 
consciousness  is,  that  it  is  the  strongest. 

4  It  is  said  that  the  position  is  fatalism.  We  have  already 
considered  this.  In  fatalism,  all  actions  are  (a.)  under  a  blind 
necessity,  (6.)  are  determined  by  a  natural  necessity,  and  (c.)  ul- 
timately by  external  necessity.  Here  (a.)  actions  are  determined 
by  a  rational  law:  choice-from-motives;  (b.)  they  occur  under  a 
moral  certainty;  (c.)  they  have  an  internal  cause.  That  is  fatal- 
ism in  which  the  action  is  determined  without  choice,  but  here 
in  every  case,  it  is  by  and  through  choice.  Until  it  can  be 
shown  that  man  in  choosing  from  the  strongest  motives  does 
not  choose,  the  objection  from  fatalism  will  not  hold. 

5.  Instances  are  alleged  against  the  position.  E.  g.,  Adam 
and  his  fall;  the  Angels  and  their  lapse.  Here,  it  is  said,  the 
strongest  motive  was  not  the  inducement.  It  is  to  be  said  in 
reply,  that  certainly  it  was  not  the  strongest  intrinsically,  but 
Adam  must  have  been  less  wise  than  he  is  reputed,  if  he  sinned 
for  what  seemed  to  him  less  desirable  than  something  else.  It 
makes,  however,  no  difference  whether  we  deal  with  this  objec- 
tion in  one  way  or  another:  because  first  sins  cannot  be  explained 
on  any  theory. 

This  is  true  about  the  strongest  motive:  we  cannot  decide 
beforehand  which  is  the  strongest  motive  always  in  view  of  the 


250  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

mind.  A  slight  circumstance  may  decide,  as  far  as  the  mind  goes, 
and  it  is  often  in  a  state  where  it  is  nearly  equally  balanced, 
and  where  the  mind  is  not  fixed  on  the  strongest  motive.1  The 
strongest  motive  is  the  indivisible  state  before  the  choice.  There 
is  often  not  time  to  think  of  this:  but  we  see  that  it  was  so  on 
looking  back. 


CHAPTER  X. 

OF    LIBERTY    AND    NECESSITY. 

The  whole  question  here  has  reference  to  the  application  ot 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect  to  the  Will.  Ought  it  to  be  applied, 
and  if  so,  in  what  way  ? 2 

I. — Of  the  terms  used.  Natural  Necessity  means  the  con- 
nection between  events  as  found  in  the  ordinary  course  of  na- 
ture, the  connection  of  cause  and  effect  in  physical  events.  Here 
there  is  in  the  phenomena  invariable  antecedence  and  con- 
sequence, and  our  minds  compel  us  to  conclude  that  there  is 
in  connection  with  the  antecedent  a  power  adequate  to  produce 
the  consequent. 

Moral  Necessity  is  the  real  and  certain  connection  between 
moral  acts  and  their  causes.  This  phrase  Edwards  uses,  through- 
out his  treatise,  in  the  sense  of  certainty,  and  says  that  the 
word  necessity  is  applied  to  it  improperly. 

Metaphysical  or  Philosophical  Necessity  is  used  in  the  same 
gense  as  Moral.  Edwards  (Inq.,  Pt.  i.  §  3):  "It  is  nothing  dif- 
ferent from  certainty:  I  speak  not  now  of  the  certainty  of 

1  Whether  intrinsically  strongest,  or  what  proves  strongest  actually. 

2  The  chief  passages  in  the  Westminster  Confession,  bearing  on  this  subject: 
Chap  III.,  in  reference  to  the  Divine  foreordination,  "  nor  is  violence  done  to  the 
will  of  the  creature";  Chap.  IX.,  "God  hath  endued  the  will  of  man  with  that 
natural  liberty  that  it  is  neither  forced,  nor  by  any  absolute  necessity  of  nature 
determined,  to  good  or  evil."     The  confession  does  not  directly  decide  the  ques- 
tion.    It  is  not  strictly  a  scheme  of  philosophical  necessity.     It  can  be  interpreted 
in  consistency  with  philosophical  necessity,  and  perhaps  better  in  consistency 
with  that  than  with  any  other  scheme.     It  is  decidedly  opposed  to  pure  self 
determination  of  the  will. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION. 

knowledge,  but  the  certainty  there  is  in  things  themselves 
which  is  the  foundation  of  the  certainty  of  the  knowledge  of 
them:  or  that  wherein  lies  the  ground  of  the  infallibility  of 
the  proposition  which  affirms  them." l 

The  term  necessity  is  rather  an  unfortunate  one  to  use,  but, 
being  used,  we  ought  to  know  in  what  sense  it  is  employed. 

II. — Statements  of  the  Points  in  the  Case.  Schelling  says, 
"  That  freedom  which  men  try  to  find  in  empirical  actions  is  as 
little  real  freedom,  as  that  truth  which  they  find  in  empirical 
knowledge  is  real  truth.  There  is  no  freedom  which  is  not 
consistent  with  necessity."  Schleiermacher :  "Freedom  is  per- 
sonality itself.  To  ascribe  sin  to  freedom  means  to  reckon  to 
each  one  his  own  acts."  Hegel  says:  The  connection  between 
necessity  and  freedom  is  the  most  difficult  subject  in  the  whole 
of  speculation.  He  gives  the  following:  (1)  Essence  and  prop- 
erties go  together.  In  the  properties  we  find  the  essence,  and  in 
the  essence  the  properties.  (2)  Substances  act  on  each  other. 
There  is  a  reciprocal  action.  Each  substance  is  a  cause  in  rela- 
tion to  the  other  and  an  eifect.  Each  is  active  and  passive  in 
this  reciprocal  action.  (3)  So  in  respect  to  necessity  and  free- 
dom. In  the  case  of  man  the  substance  determines  as  well  as 
is  determined.  There  is  the  activity  of  the  free  will  and  also 
that  which  determines  the  activity — the  motive  object  or  end 
in  view  of  which  the  mind  acts.  The  necessity  consists  in  the 
fact  that  that  something,  in  view  of  which  the  mind  acts,  is 
something  given,  and  not  originated,  and  that  these  data  are  as 
necessary  as  the  power  of  choice  itself.  (4)  The  net  result  of 
the  whole  is,  that  the  causal  relation  does  not  exclude  freedom, 
when  it  is  considered  as  reciprocal  action.  There  may  be  a 
causal  relation  and  freedom  also.  What  is  given,  or  the  influences 
around  us,  constitute  motives;  then  the  mind,  thus  acted  upon 
reacts;  thus  solicited,  chooses;  but  it  cannot  choose  beyond  the 
metes  and  bounds  of  the  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  i.  e., 
it  cannot  originate  the  substance  of  its  choice,  but  only  the  fact 
of  its  choice.  It  can  give  the  formula  of  the  choice,  but  it  cannot 

1  The  younger  Edwards  puts  it  still  more  sharply,  and  leaves  still  less  place 
for  a  definite  act  of  the  will  besides  the  motive. 


252  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

fill  up  the  formula.  Hamilton :  Both  "are  incomprehensible,  as  be- 
yond the  limits  of  legitimate  thought.  Though  freedom  cannot  be 
speculatively  proved,  so  neither  can  it  be  speculatively  disproved ; 
while  we  may  claim  for  it  as  a  fact  of  real  actuality,  though  of 
inconceivable  possibility,  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  that  we 
are  morally  free  as  we  are  morally  accountable  for  our  actions." 
III. — Conclusion  upon  the  Question.  Volition  is  an  effect. 
As  an  effect,  it  is  under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  As  an 
effect,  it  must  of  course  be  produced  by  its  appropriate  cause 
or  causes.  This  cause  or  these  causes  are  what  immediately 
precedes  the  volition.  That  which  immediately  precedes  the 
volition  is,  choosing  in  view  of  motives,  and  the  volition  is  the 
result.  That  is,  the  choosing  and  the  motives  constitute  the 
cause,1  and  the  volition  as  the  resultant,  constitutes  the  effect. 
The  motives  are  the  occasional  and  final  cause,  the  agent — the 
man  choosing — is  the  efficient  cause.  In  this  statement  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect,  as  applied  to  the  will,  is  allowed  and  the  fre«- 
dom  of  the  will  is  saved.  Thus  in  the  will  there  may  be  a  union 
of  "necessity"  (of  moral  necessity,  of  certainty)  and  freedom. 

[What  would  be  CHAPTEEX!.,  OFNATUBAL  ABILITY  AND  MOEAL  INABILITY,  will 
be  considered  under  the  head  of  CHRISTIAN  HAMABTOLOGY.] 


CHAPTER    XI. 

OF    THE    PRIMEVAL    MORAL    STATE    OF    MAN.2 

The  main  points  in  man's  primitive  state  are  given  in  the 
answer  to  Question  10  of  the  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism : 
"God  created  man,  male  and  female,  after  his  own  image, 

1  Edwards  does  not  appear  to  make  this  distinction,  but  Pres.  Day  thinks 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  question  that  man  is  the  proper  author  of  his  own  acts, 
and  that  his  statement  here  was  merely  analytical. 

2  References:  D  wight;  Miiller  on  Sin,  ii.  482;  Thomasius,  i.  178;  Hofmann, 
Schriftbeweis,  i.  241;  Hutterus  Eedivivus,  194;  Martensen,  169;  Ebrard,  i.  250; 
Bretschneider,  i.;  B.  Tyler's  Lectures,  i.,  ii.;   Ed.  Wm.   Grinfield,  Scriptural 
Inquiry  into  tho  Image  and  Likeness  of  God  in  Man,  Lond.,  1837;  Bishop  Bull's 
Discourse  V.:  State  of  Man  before  the  Fall. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  253 

in  knowledge,  righteousness,  and  holiness,  with  dominion  over 
the  creatures."  Man  was  created  after  the  other  works,  as  the 
crown  of  the  creation ;  all  the  rest  centering  in  him,  and  he  hav- 
ing dominion.  First  Adam  and  then  Eve,  "male  and  female  cre- 
ated He  them :"  the  beginning  and  center  of  unity  and  source  of 
the  whole  race  was  in  this  one  pair.  Society  began,  mairiage 
was  ordained.  The  law  of  God  was  written  on  man's  heart  (Rom. 
ii.  15).  He  was  placed  in  the  garden  with  liberty  to  eat  of  the 
fruit  of  the  trees ;  the  creatures  were  put  under  his  dominion. 

§  1.  The  Scriptures  teach  that  there  was  a  primitive  State  of 
Innocence. 

1.  They  do  this  by  describing  sin  as  the  consequence  of 
temptation.     Therefore  man  was  in  a  state  of  innocence  before. 
Gen.  iii.  is  the  proof.     Also,  Rom.  v.  12,  15.     The  expression, 
"tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil"  (Gen.  ii.  17),  implies 
man's  innocence  at  the  beginning.     He  could  be  in  this  state 
only  by  not  knowing  evil,  and  his  temptation  was  to  gain  this 
knowledge.     All  the  description  of  the  Paradisiacal  state  con 
firms  this  view,  implying  a  state  of  entire  purity.     Sensuality 
was  not  known  (Gen.  ii.  25,  cf.  iii.  7). 

2.  The  Scriptures  also  make  more  positive  statements      Gen. 
i.  31,  All  was  "very  good,"  after  man's  creation;  Eccles.  vii.  29, 
the  expression  "  upright "  is  general. 

This  state  is  not  that  of  children,  still  less  that  of  primitive 
savagery:  it  is  a  state  of  innocence,  of  moral  purity,  of  simple 
childlike  communion  with  God.  In  order  to  their  having  com- 
munion with  God  in  a  personal  way,  there  must  have  been  a 
ripe  condition  of  the  powers.  Gen.  i.  28,  29;  ii.  16;  ii.  19,  20, 
presuppose  more  than  childhood.  Dominion,  knowledge  of  the 
trees  of  the  garden,  power  to  name  the  beasts,  confirm  what  is 
implied  in  the  great  fact  of  communion  with  God  as  to  the  com- 
parative ripeness  of  man's  powers  in  the  primitive  state. 

§  2.   This  original  State  is  described  in  general  Terms  as  the 
Divine  Image  in  Man. 
Gen.  i.  26;  v.  i. 
The  divine  image  in  man  designates  both  something  that  is 


254  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

permanent  in  human  nature  and  also  a  state  of  that  natura 
which  was  lost  by  the  fall. 

(a.)  What  is  permanent  is  referred  to  in  Gen.  v.  1,  3,  where 
Adam's  likeness  to  God  and  Seth's  to  Adam  are  brought  together, 
BO  that  we  naturally  conclude  that  the  divine  image  remains; 
Gen.  ix.  6;  1  Cor.  xi.  7;  James  iii.  9. 

These  passages  imply  that  the  image  remains  in  man,  but 
tne  question  still  might  arise,  whether  they  even  then  refer  merely 
to  man's  intellectual  and  moral  powers  in  the  abstract,  or  to 
what  these  may  become,  what  it  is  possible  for  man  still  to  be, 
his  latent  possibilities. 

(b.)  What  was  lost  of  the  original  image  may  be  inferred  from 
Eph.  iv.  24,  where  the  idea  of  the  "  image  of  God  "  is  expressed 
by  righteousness  and  holiness;  Col.  iii.  10,  where  the  image  is 
represented  as  divine,  spiritual  knowledge,  the  term  "  renewed  " 
implying  restoration  to  a  former  state.  (It  is  noticeable  also 
that  the  former  state,  "  after  the  image,"  is  expressed  in  lang- 
uage which  might  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  Septuagint  version 
of  Gen.  i.  27.)  These  passages  show  that  to  the  full  moral  im- 
age of  God  righteousness  and  holiness  belong. 

How  now  shall  we  conceive  of  the  divine  image  under  the 
two  points,of  view  of  completeness  and  defectiveness  in  man  ? 
That  which  is  permanent  is  found  in  man's  personality,  his 
being  a  spirit,  his  having  intelligence  and  moral  capacities,  his 
having  a  moral  destination  and  likewise,  to  some  extent,  domin- 
ion over  the  creatures.  In  distinction  from  this,  the  part  lost 
was  the  holy  state  of  these  faculties.  They  were  originally  not 
merely  potentialities,  but  were  in  a  state  of  righteousness  and 
true  holiness. 

To  enforce  this  distinction  still  further,  there  is  also  a  meta- 
physical proof.  Man  could  not  be  made  in  the  moral  image  of 
God,  unless  he  had  been  made  a  spirit  like  God.  Man  could  not 
be  holy  as  God  is  holy,  unless  he  had  intelligence,  feeling,  and 
will,  as  far  as  a  creature  can  have  them  like  God.  His  capacity 
of  being  like  God  remains,  although  the  actual  moral  likeness 
was  lost  by  the  fall. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  255 

§  3.  Yet  this  primitive  State  was  not  one  of  confirmed  Holiness 
but  mutable. 

The  primitive  state  is  to  be  conceived  as  one  of  comparatively 
unconscious  goodness,  rather  than  of  goodness  which  has  been 
developed  and  come  to  full  self-possession  in  conflict  with  temp- 
tation. The  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  was  to  be 
the  test,  the  means  of  bringing  man  to  a  full  consciousness  of 
the  difference  between  good  and  evil.  It  might  be  to  him  a 
source  of  blessing,  by  confirming  him  in  holiness.  Full,  con- 
scious freedom  in  good  might  be  the  result.  We  may  conceive 
•in  Adam,  of  a  spontaneous  direction  of  his  powers  to  God,  in 
love,  and  yet  one  not  tried,  not  so  high  a  state  as  that  in  which 
they  would  be  after  temptation,  if  he  had  successfully  resisted 
it.  Besides  what  we  gather  from  the  Scriptures  on  this  subject, 
("Blessed  is  the  man  that  endure th  temptation  or  trial,"  etc.,) 
there  is  an  argument  of  rational  probability,  from  what  we  might 
suppose  God  would  do:  if  He  created,  He  would  create  what  in  its 
measure  is  perfect,  the  best.  As  far  as  we  can  conceive  of  this 
primitive  state  in  which  Adam  must  have  been,  it  was  either: 
(1)  one  of  total  indifference  to  good  and  evil,  with  no  knowl- 
edge or  susceptibilities  in  respect  to  either,  with  capacities 
only;  or  (2)  one  of  positive  inclination  to  sense,  gradually  to 
come  to  reason;  or  (3)  one  of  positive  inclination  to  holiness  or 
good.  The  latter  is  the  more  rational,  as  well  as  the  Scriptural, 
position. 

§  4.   On  the  different  Interpretations  of  the  "Divine  Image" 
The  Greek  Fathers  put  the  divine  image1  in  man's  general 
endowments,  in  reason  and  freedom,  which  had  an  original  per- 
fection, were  active  in  communion  with  God,  with  the  Logos, 
constituting  the  vision  of  God,  a  life  in  God. 

The  Western  Church,  especially  as  is  seen  in  Augustine,  con- 
strue  the  primitive  condition  as  one  of  righteousness,  dwelling 
upon  the  state  of  man's  will.  Man  was  not  made  with  merely 
the  possibility  of  a  good  will  (Pelagianism),  but  with  the  ac- 

1  They  often  make  a  distinction  between  "image"  (the  capacities)  and  "  like 
ness  "  (the  moral  resemblance),  which  cannot  be  exegetically  carried  out. 


256  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

tuality.  But  though  created  with  a  good  will,  yet  not  complete, 
as  even  Augustine  allows, — not  in  the  highest  state.  He  says  the 
image  both  is  lost  and  remains:  there  is  possibility  of  restoration 
only  because  something  of  the  divine  image  is  still  left:  he 
finds  in  man  an  image  of  the  Trinity:  memory,  intelligence,  will. 

Through  the  Middle  Ages,  there  was  a  constant  tendency  to 
make  the  divine  image  in  man  to  consist  merely  in  the  rational 
powers,  and  any  positive  goodness  which  was  in  him  at  creation 
to  be,  not  a  state  of  his  faculties,  but  a  supernatural  endowment: 
the  former  being  often  viewed  as  the  "  image,"  the  latter  as  the 
"similitude"  of  God.  It  may  be  said  that  this  has  become  the' 
Koman  Catholic  theory  of  grace:  Righteousness  is  something 
superadded  to  the  faculties  of  man,  rather  than  a  state  of  the 
faculties. 

In  the  Reformation,  this  original  state  of  righteousness  was 
one  of  the  sharp  points  of  contest.  The  Roman  Catholic  view, 
as  fully  developed  at  that  time,  was:  In  man  at  birth  there  are 
simply  pura  naturalia  without  any  specific  tendency.  The  ten- 
dency to  good,  which  Adam  had,  did  not  belong  to  human  na- 
ture, but  was  a  supernatural  endowment,  and  was  lost  by  the 
fall,  and  this  grace  is  that  which  is  restored  by  the  church  in 
baptism.  The  Protestants  took  the  view  that  the  integrity  of 
human  nature,  in  a  moral  sense,  was  lost  by  the  faU,  and  they 
ran  perhaps  into  the  other  extreme  of  making  the  whole  image 
to  be  moral  likeness,  not  emphasizing  the  permanent  likeness 
which  man  has  as  a  personal  spirit,  etc.  The  main  point  in 
the  view  was,  that  man  had  not  merely  capacities  for  goodness, 
but  that  these  capacities  were  in  a  holy  state,  having  a  holy 
bias  or  tendency  in  them.  The  Protestant  Reformers  generally 
would  say,  that  holiness  was  concreated  in  man,  that  there  was 
an  original  righteousness.  Almost  all  the  Reformed  symbols, 
Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  have  this  view.  The  divine  image  is 
the  whole  of  the  primitive  perfections,  original  justice  (or  right- 
eousness), the  special  ethical  relations  in  man:  they  differ  as  the 
whole  and  the  part:  the  whole  man  is  the  image,  his  moral  ten- 
dencies (wisdom,  love,  etc.,)  the  justice.  The  Roman  Catholic 
objected,  that  on  this  view  the  loss  of  the  divine  image  was  the 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  257 

loss  of  religious  and  moral  endowments:  the  reply  was,  Not  so, 
— only  of  the  original  state  or  tendency  of  the  endowments. 
But  this  state  or  tendency  was  primeval.  This  is  a  much  pro- 
founder  view  than  the  Roman  Catholic,  which  makes  grace  exter- 
nal. The  wisdom  and  holiness,  however,  were  not  a  perfect  state 
of  the  soul,  but  rather  predisposition,  tendency,  etc.  The  state 
was  one  of  probation,  with  consummation  over  against  it. 

This  is  the  general  position  and  usage  of  language  in  our 
American  theology.  Edwards  (sometimes  said  to  have  held  that 
all  holiness  is  in  exercises)  says:  "  Human  nature  must  be  cre- 
ated with  some  disposition^ otherwise  it  must  be  without 

any  such  thing  as  inclination  or  will;"  "the  notion  of  Adam's 
being  created  without  a  principle  of  holiness  in  his  heart  is  in 
consistent  with  the  account  in  Genesis."  By  principle  he  means, 
44  a  foundation  laid  in  nature,  either  old  or  new,  for  any  partic- 
ular kind  or  manner  of  exercises  of  the  soul,  or  a  natural  habit." 
Bellamy:  "As  there  was  a  holy  principle  in  Adam  before  the 
first  holy  act,  so  there  is  in  the  regenerate."  Smalley 1:  "  Adam 
was  created  with  an  active  principle  of  holiness."  Hopkins8: 
"  He  was  made  in  the  moral  image  of  God,  with  a  good  discern 
ing  taste  or  disposition,  a  rectitude  of  mind  and  will,  or  heart, 
by  which  he  was  perfectly  conformed  to  the  rule  of  his  duty,  or 
the  moral  law."  Dwight  (i.  346):  u  Adam  possessed  a  sanctified 
or  virtuous  mind  at  his  creation;"  (i.  347):  "The  affections  of 
his  soul  at  his  creation  were  virtuous;"  (i.  394):  "Man  was  cre- 
ated holy  without  any  mixture  of  sinful  affections." 8 

Rationalists  view  the  primitive  state  as  one  of  savagery,  out 
of  which  man  emerges  by  gradual  cultivation;  Pantheists  say: 
Spirit  begins  in  nature,  and  is  gradually  developed  to  reason 
and  goodness :  Pelagians  argue  for  a  total  moral  indifference  as 
the  primitive  state;  Arminians  find  the  image  of  God  mainly  in 
man's  immortality  and  dominion  over  the  brutes:  The  General 

i  Works,  ii.  400.  2  Works,  i.  196. 

3  Emmons  says:  "It  is  agreeable  to  the  nature  of  virtue  or  holiness  to  be 
created."  Moral  exercises  "are  virtuous  or  vicious  in  their  own  nature,  without 
the  least  regard  to  the  cause  by  which  they  are  produced."  But  he  does  not 
recognize  in  man  any  power  of  action  before  or  in  distinction  from  action. 
His  position  was  overthrown  by  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor. 


258  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Orthodox  mew  is:  The  image  consisted  in  the  entire  spiritual 
capacities  and  powers  of  man,  which  were  in  a  state  of  positive 
proclivity  to  holiness  and  to  divine  wisdom  (or  the  enlighten- 
ment from  God),  which  state  was  to  undergo  a  trial  in  order  to 
become  confirmed.  While  doubtless  there  has  been  much  ex- 
aggeration as  to  Adam,  the  substantial  truth,  nevertheless,  is 
expressed  in  this  last  position.  To  the  questions,  Could  holiness 
be  created  ?  Can  it  be  created  in  me  ?  perhaps  the  only  answer 
that  need  be  given  is  that  man  may  be  so  created — and  new-cre- 
ated— that  the  spontaneous  bent  of  his  soul  is  towards  a  holy 
end.  Sartorius  speaks  of  the  original  righteousness  in  relation 
to  man's  whole  being,  as  his  health  in  relation  to  the  body.  As 
health  is  not  different  from  the  bodily  powers,  and  is  not  a  spe- 
cial substance,  but  only  a  normal  condition  of  the  members,  from 
which  the  well-being  of  the  body  results :  so  grace  is  riot  a  spe- 
cial substance  in  man,  but  the  normal,  unperverted  nature  of 
the  whole  faculties  of  man  in  all  his  impulses,  in  which  is  also 
contained  an  untried  blessedness. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   DESTINATION   OP   MAN   IF   HE    HAD   CONTINUED   IN   OBEDIENCE.       THE 
COVENANT   OF   LIFE    OR   OF   WORKS. 

By  the  Covenant  of  Life  is  meant  God's  destination  of  man 
i.i  "life,"  if  he  had  not  fallen,  which  is  declared  or  intimated  in 
t..e  prohibition  with  the  penalty,  Gen.  ii.  17.  The  term  "cove- 
rant  "  is  not  understood  here  as  implying  an  actual  transaction, 
u  compact  distinctly  made  and  entered  into  by  two  parties. 
What  is  meant  to  be  set  forth  by  the  term  is,  that  if  man  had 
continued  in  his  state  of  original  rectitude,  if  he  had  stood  the 
trial,  the  test,  he  would  have  had  what  is  here  called  life,  as  the 
reward  of  his  obedience.  Or,  in  other  words,  if  man  had  con 
tinued  in  his  original  state,  had  not  transgressed  the  law,  he 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  259 

would  have  reached  the  great  end  of  his  being;  his  destina- 
tion under  the  divine  government  would  have  been  complete. 
What  that  destination  was,  may  be  gathered  partly  from  what 
we  know  about  the  nature  and  capacities  of  man,  but  chiefly  by 
reasoning  back  from  what  we  know  to  be  accomplished  by  the 
redemption  through  Christ,  to  wit: 

1.  He  would  have  come  to  a  state  of  confirmed  holiness  and 
perfect  wisdom  and  communion  with  God. 

2.  It  is  possible  that  the  natural  body,  in  the  course  of  its  de- 
velopment and  growth,  would  have  come  to  be  what  is  called 
in  Scripture  the  spiritual  bqiy  of  the  resurrection, — although 
this  is  only  a  speculation  from  the  analogy  of  what  is  and  is  to 
be  done  in  Christ  and  his  people  (his  own  resurrection  and  as- 
cension and  1  Thess.  iv.  17).     How  this  would  have  been  attained 
without  death,  we  of  course  do  not  know, — perhaps  as  the  but- 
terfly from  the  chrysalis.     There  is  nothing  in  the  so-called  laws 
of  nature  to  forbid  the  possibility.     The  resurrection  proves  that 
death,  as  we  now  know  it,  is  an  unnatural  state.1 

3.  With  Adam  would  have  begun  a  kingdom   of  God  on 
earth,   and  the  laws   of  marriage  and  increase  of  population 
would  have  been  laws  of  increase   to  that  kingdom  on  earth. 

4.  To  man  would  have  been  given  dominion  over  the  world, 
subduing  it  unto  himself  in  the  service  of  God.     Man  was  made 
to  be  prophet,  priest,  and  king  here  on  earth.     He  lost  his  right 
by  the  Fall,  and  Christ  came  to  be  prophet,  priest,  and  king,  in 
order  that,  standing  in  man's  stead,  He  might  restore  what  was 
lost  in  the  fall. 

1  As  to  the  "tree  of  life,"  whether  through  its  inherent  virtue  or  by  divine 
grace,  the  immortality  was  to  be  conferred,  is  not  decided.  Augustine  calls  it 
a  "sacrament."  Hengstenberg  (Rev.  ii.  35)  takes  it  to  be  a  tree  of  life,  "not  ag 
conferring,  but  symbolizing,  life." 


PART     IV. 

CHRISTIAN   HAMAETOLOGY.     THE   DOCTRINE 
RESPECTING  SIN. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE   FALL   HISTORICALLY   VIEWED.1 

Westminster  Shorter  Catechism,  answer  to  Ques.  13:  "Our 
first  parents,  being  left  to  the  freedom  of  their  own  will,  fell 
from  the  estate  wherein  they  were  created  by  sinning  against 
God." 

§  1.   The  Temptation:  is  it  Historical  ? 

Position:  The  New  Testament  treats  it  as  such,  and  draws 
doctrinal  consequences  from  its  facts:  Rom.  v.  14;  1  Cor.  xv. 
22;  1  Tim.  ii.  13. 

It  is  said  that  Moses  could  not  have  known  it  as  a  history: 
but  he  might  have  known  it  by  tradition,  and  what  he  did  not 
know  in  that  way,  he  might  have  obtained  by  revelation. 

It  is  also  said  that  the  form  of  the  narrative  is  allegorical. 
The  form  is  rather  natural,  in  conformity  with  man's  condition. 
It  is  to  be  interpreted,  we  suppose,  in  the  way  of  a  real  temp- 
tation, though  we  would  concede  that  Satan  may  be  here  repre- 
sented in  the  form  of  a  serpent,  so  that  "  serpent "  here  means, 
is  the  name  of,  Satan,  and  that  name  being  taken  as  the  equiv- 
alent of  Satan,  the  narrative  goes  under  that  similitude;  and 
that  is  all  the  symbolical  element  which  need  be  supposed  to  be 
in  the  narrative;  the  curse  being  not  literally  a  curse  on  the 
serpent,  but  on  Satan,  and  being  represented  as  a  curse  on  the 
Berpent.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assert  that  Satan  took  the  form 

1  Edwards  on  Original  Sin;  Hopkins,  i.  8,  a  very  able  development;  Julius 
Htiller,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  the  great  work  of  our  century 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  261 

of  a  serpent,  though  we  think  it  is  probable  that  the  Tempter 
did  appear  in  some  form.1 

To  those  in  the  condition  of  our  first  parents,  God  would  not 
probably  have  given  an  abstract  law,  but  a  specific  command. 
It  was  the  easiest  of  commands,  apparently;  and  as  the  obedi- 
ence was  easier,  the  ill-desert  of  failure  was  much  greater.  In 
short,  if  the  race  were  to  be  tried  again,  the  circumstances  of 
man's  condition  as  here  given  are  as  natural2  as  any  other  sup- 
posable  circumstances,  and  as  favorable  to  man  as  any  could  be. 

So  that  the  temptation  is  suitable  to  the  condition  of  our  first 
parents.  If  that  condition  ^as  an  historical  fact,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  temptation  should  not  have  been.  The  objec- 
tion that  it  is  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  so  much  could  be 
made  dependent  on  beings  in  such  a  state,  is  to  be  met  by  point- 
ing out  that  the  state  was  as  good  a  one  as  we  can  suppose.  ' 

Furthermore,  the  connection  in  this  world  between  sin  and 
evil  spirits,  as  the  Scriptures  describe  it,  is  historical  fact,  and 
hence  the  beginning  of  this  connection — in  the  temptation — is 
to  be  viewed  as  historical.  The  conflict  between  Christ  and 
Satan  was  real,  the  conflict  is  real  between  Christ's  kingdom 
and  Satan's.  Christ  met  and  conquered  Satan  and  all  his  host 
for  us,  in  a  struggle  of  which  we  have  only  a  partial  revelation 
and  a  dim  conception.  It  would  appear  that  the  power  of  Satan 
in  the  world  reached  its  culminating  point  in  the  time  of  Christ, 
and  has  been  less  ever  since.  If  Christ's  temptation  by  Satan 
and  victory  over  him  were  historical  events,  there  seems  to  be 
no  ground  for  supposing  that  the  first  temptation  was  not  an 
historical  event 

§  2.   The  Features  of  the  Temptation. 

1.  Man,  as  we  have  said,  was  in  circumstances  which  were 
highly  favorable  to  him.  In  the  profuse  bounty  of  the  earth 
only  one  point  was  forbidden.  The  prohibition  made  a  real, 

1  The  Serpent  of  Eden  from  the  Point  of  View  of  Advanced  Science,  by  Kev. 
John  Duns,  D.D.  (Free  Church  of  Scotland),  in  Bib.  Sac.,  Jan.  '64.     De  Bow's 
Rev.,  '60:  "  The  original  tempter  a  black  man, — the  gardener." 

2  Everything  is  in  concrete  form,  with  depths  of  truth,  such  as  myths  alone 
could  nevior  have. 


262  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

practical  test,  but  one  where  obedience  was  easy.  Dwight  (i 
398) :  "  No  metaphysical  or  philosophical  discussion  was  de- 
manded or  admitted."  The  reward  of  obedience  was  to  be 
great,  and  the  penalty  of  disobedience  great,  more  so  than  they 
then  knew,  but  it  was  sufficiently  known:  they  knew  that  a 
divine  command  was  given,  with  a  penalty  attached. 

2.  The  temptation  was  subtle,  corresponding  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  tempter  and  suitable  to  that  of  the  woman.     The 
first  question  excited  curiosity,  the  next  assertion  aroused  pride. 
The  heart  of  the  temptation  is  in  the  desire  to  know,  and  not  in 
the  sensual  gratification.     Knowledge,  independence,  likeness 
to  the  higher  beings,  were  to  be  gained.     First  there  is  sug- 
gested the  doubt  of  God,  whether  He  could  be  trusted,  then 
there  is  the  appeal  to  pride,  the  spirit  of  '*  affecting   deity," 
which  had  perhaps  first  prevailed  with  the  tempter  himself,1 
then  a  solicitation  through  the  senses. 

3.  As  to  the  Possibility  of  the  Fall.     What  is  here  in  ques- 
tion is,  the  psychological  possibility  of  the  fall.     Man  was  made 
mutable.     In  his  primitive  state,  he  loved  God  spontaneously. 
Would  he  love  Him  in  spite  of  temptation  ?     He  knew  good  in 
direct  feeling:  he  knew  his  relation,  and  God's  rightful  com- 
mand.    The  temptation  does  not  give  the  necessity  of  sinning, 
but  it  gives  the  necessity  of  deciding  between  good  and  evil, 
God  and  the  world.     The  state  of  the  case,  as  far  as  we  can  en 
ter  into  Adam's  experience,  is  this:  Before  the  command  there 
was  the  state  of  love  without  the  thought  of  the  opposite:  a 
knowledge  of  good  only,  a  yet  unconscious  goodness:  there  was 
also  the  knowledge  that  the  eating  of  the  fruit  was  against  the 
divine  command.     The  temptation  aroused  pride:  the  yielding 
to  that  was  the  evil.     Taking  the  fruit  was  not  the  sin  essen- 
tially, the  yielding  to  pride  was  the  sin.     The  change  was  there 
The  change  was  not  in  the  choice  as  an  executive  act,  nor  in  the 
result  of  that  act — the  eating,  but  in  the  choice  of  supreme  love 
to  tho  world  and  self,  rather  than  supreme  devotion  to  God.     It 
was  an  immanent  preference  of  the  world, — not  a  love  of  the 
world  following  upon  the  choice,  but  a  love  of  the  world  which 
is  the  choice  itself. 

1  Tim.  iii.  6. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  263 

We  cannot  account  for  Adams  fall,  psychologically. 

In  saying  this  we  mean :  It  is  inexplicable  by  anything  out- 
side of  itself.  We  must  receive  the  fact  as  ultimate,  and  rest 
there.  Of  course  we  do  not  mean  that  it  was  not  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  moral  agency, — that  it  was  a  violation  of  those 
laws:  but  only  that  we  do  not  see  the  mode,  that  we  cannot  con- 
struct it  for  ourselves  in  a  rational  way.  It  differs  from  all  other 
similar  cases  of  ultimate  preference  which  we  know;1  viz.,  the  sin- 
ner's immanent  preference  of  the  world,  where  we  know  there  is 
an  antecedent  ground  in  the  bias  \o  sin,  and  the  Christian's  regen- 
eration, or  immanent  preference  of  God,  where  we  know  there  is 
an  influence  from  without,  the  working  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Of  course  we  do  not  mean  that  we  may  not  make  supposi- 
tions enough  to  account  for  it,  both  in  respect  to  man's  soul  and 
to  God's  agency.  But  then  the  difficulty  is  only  transferred  to 
the  suppositions,  and  remains  just  as  great;  and  it  is  better 
to  leave  it  with  the  simple  fact — as  ultimate  in  the  case — of  an 
immanent  preference,  free,  accountable. 

Examples  of  such  suppositions:  (a.)  That  the  Divine  Spirit 
left  Adam  before  his  choice.  This  would  seemingly  account 
for  the  fall:  but  then  the  difficulty  arises,  as  to  the  taking  away 
of  the  Spirit,  which  we  naturally  suppose  to  be  the  consequence, 
and  not  the  antecedent  occasion  of  the  fall;  and  if  the  Spirit  re- 
mained in  Adam,  how  could  he  have  fallen?  (b.)  God  arranged 
events  so  that  Adam  would  certainly  fall,  yet  he  fell  by  his 
own  free  choice.2  But  this  too  drives  us  to  choice,  as  ultimate. 
(c.)  Natural  susceptibility  explains  the  fall:  Adam  desired  the 
food,  had  his  ambition  aroused,  and,  under  such  influences,  chose 

1  The  phrase  in  the  Catechism,  "being  left  to  the  freedom  of  their  own  will," 
is  not  intended  as  a  psychological  explanation  of  the  fall.    It  guards  against  the 
Supralapsarian  view,  and  also  against  Necessitarian  views.     The  Supralapsarian 
says  that  God  decreed  the  fall  after  He  had  decreed  election:  the  Sublapsarian 
says  (in  the  form  preferred  by  us),  that  God  decreed  to  permit  the  fall,  and  then, 
in  view  of  his  purpose  of  providing  Kedemption  for  the  race,  elected  out  of  fallen 
men  a  people  to  his  praise. 

2  Dr.  Emmons  has  a  theory  which  is  certainly  not  lacking  in  boldness,  th« 
theory  of  direct  divine  efficiency.     ' '  Satan  placed  certain  motives  before  his 
[Adam's]  mind,  which,  by  a  divine  energy,  took  hold  of  his  heart  and  led  him 
into  sin."     "His  first  sin  was  a  free,  voluntary  exercise,  produced  by  a  divine 
operation  in  the  view  of  motives."     Works,  iv.  356. 


264  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

freely,  which  was  undoubtedly  the  case.  But  here  is  no  explana- 
tion. This  is  merely  a  statement  of  the  circumstances,  without 
accounting  for  them.  This  choice  was  made  while  Adam  was 
still  loving  God:  how  then  could  it  have  been  made?  (d.)  He 
chose  because  he  had  the  power  of  contrary  choice.  This  also  is 
leaving  it  an  anomalous  case,  the  only  case  extant,  and  impossible 
at  that,  (e.)  If  it  be  said,  Pride  rose  to  a  certain  height,  and  under 
its  influence  man  chose  to  eat,  then  the  pride  is  the  immanent  pref- 
erence itself:  if  it  be  said,  the  pride  was  merely  natural,  had  no 
character,  and  got  a  character  by  choice  added  to  it,  then  pride 
was  chosen, — then  that  choice  of  pride  was  an  immanent  pref- 
erence or  not:  if  it  was  not,  we  have  not  reached  any  character: 
if  it  was,  we  have  still  an  immanent  preference  to  account  for. 

We  must  leave  the  whole  question  with  the  immanent  pref- 
erence standing  forth  as  the  ultimate  fact  in  the  case,  which  is 
not  to  be  constructed  philosophically,  as  far  as  the  processes  of 
Adam's  soul  are  concerned:  we  must  regard  that  immanent  pref- 
erence as  both  a  choice  and  an  affection,  not  an  affection  the 
result  of  a  choice,  not  a  choice  which  is  the  consequence  of  an 
affection,  but -both  together.1  As  to  the  divine  agency  in  the 
case,  that  simply  runs  into  the  general  question  of  the  permis- 
sion of  sin,  which  we  have  already  considered. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE   PENALTY.       THE   DEATH    THREATENED    FOR   DISOBEDIENCE. 

In  consequence  of  the  transgression,  sentence  was  pronounced 
on  all  who  were  concerned  in  it:  on  the  tempter,  the  woman, 
and  the  man.  Gen.  iii.  14-19.  Of  the  specific  term,  the  death 
threatened,  nothing  is  directly  said,  except  "  dust  thou  art  and 
unto  dust  shalt  thou  return : "  but  the  evils  which  were  included 
in  the  original  threat  are  brought  out  in  the  more  special  assign- 

1  And  this  is  the  ultimate  analysis  of  the  psychology  of  the  case  in  every 
change  of  moral  character.  Here  is  the  mystery  of  the  will's  action,  and  this 
IB  tho  sphere  of  moral  quality,  moral  ae'cduntability. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  265 

merits:  to  the  woman,  pain  and  sorrow  in  childbirth  and  subjec- 
tion to  man:  to  man,  a  condition  of  toil  and  sorrow  closing  in 
literal  death.  (The  literal  sentence  on  Satan  is  in  accordance 
with  his  assumed  character:  enmity  between  thee  and  the 
woman,  thy  seed  and  her  seed:  you  seem  to  have  a  triumph, 
it  shall  prove  a  discomfiture.)  It  would  seem  that  we  must 
give  such  an  interpretation  to  the  whole  sentence  as  shall  show 
that  it  began  to  be  at  once  fulfilled. 

Death  is  usually  distributed  into  a  three- fold  form:  as  death 
spiritual,  temporal,  and  eternal;  and  almost  all  expositors  agree 
that  "  death  "  here  includes  these  three  points.  It  is  questioned, 
however,  whether  some  of  these  are  not  to  be  considered  rather 
the  consequence  than  the  strict  penalty  of  sin.  The  difficulties 
are  as  to  temporal  and  spiritual  death ;  there  is  no  question  that 
eternal  death  is  included  in  the  sentence.  The  objection  to  includ- 
ing spiritual  death  is  that  it  "makes  sin  to  be  the  punishment 
of  sin:"  to  including  temporal  death,  that  it  brings  a  penalty 
upon  infants,  e.  g.,  as  members  of  the  race  simply,  and  so  assigns 
a  "penalty"  for  something  which  is  not  strict  personal  transgres- 
sion ;  also,  that  Christ  has  taken  away  all  that  really  belonged 
to  the  original  curse,  but  temporal  death  is  certainly  not  taken 
away ;  and  again,  on  grounds  of  physiology  and  modern  scienc^ 
in  which  death  is  viewed  as  a  purely  natural  event.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  say  eternal  death  is  all  that  was  included,  we 
are  driven  to  say  that  there  is  then  no  instance  of  the  proper 
penalty  of  the  law  being  inflicted  in  this  life,  and  hence  there 
is  no  moral  government  which  employs  punishment,  here.  The 
general,  the  almost  universal,  interpretation  includes  all  the 
three  forms:  the  exceptions  are  very  few. 

§  1.  As  to  Spiritual  Death. 

By  this  is  meant,  the  loss  of  communion  with  God,  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  supremacy  of  worldly  and  self- 
ish affections — and  consequent  "moral  inability" — with  whatever 
misery  comes  in  connection  with  these.  By  spiritual  death  is 
not  meant  merely  sin  in  its  formal  mode  of  being,  as  an  act  or 
affection,  but  sin  as  involving  separation  from  God,  the  with- 


266  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

drawal  of  the  divine  life,  and  as  involving  in  its  very  nature 
misery,  wretchedness,  pain.  Now  undoubtedly  sin  cannot  be 
punished  by  sin,  but  a  part  of  its  judicial  consequences  may  be 
in  bringing  with  itself,  from  its  very  nature,  loss  of  the  divine 
communion,  wretchedness  and  pain.  Every  passion  as  it  is  in- 
dulged, not  only  becomes  more  sinful,  but  adds  to  our  estrange- 
ment and  misery.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  all  sinful  desires  that 
as  they  increase  in  intensity  and  pass  beyond  certain  limits,  as 
they  are  sure  to  do,  they  give  pain,  not  pleasure.  In  this  sense, 
the  sentence  of  the  law  begins  at  once  to  be  fulfilled.  We  may 
say,  this  is  only  a  consequence  of  sin,  but  it  is  a  just  and  an 
ordained  consequence  of  sin,  and  only  of  sin,  under  God's  moral 
government;  and  so  it  is  a  part  of  the  punishment  of  sin,  unless 
we  arbitrarily  limit  the  term,  punishment.  All  usage  is  in  favor 
of  this  view.  All  in  the  soul  which  we  mean  by  spiritual  death: 
the  cutting  off  from  the  source  of  life  and  from  our  true  happi- 
ness which  is  in  holiness,  and  the  power  of  worldly  appetites: 
these  all  are  a  proper  part  of  the  penalty.  So  too  with  remorse, 
which  comes  in  the  soul  as  a  part  of  the  spiritual  death,  and 
which  may  be  said  to  be  the  most  significant  part  of  the  penalty. 
If  the  pangs  the  sinner  feels  do  not  belong  to  his  punishment, 
what  does  belong  to  it  ? 

This  spiritual  death  is  referred  to  in  the  Scriptures,  in  a 
variety  of  strong  and  vivid  representations.  Rom.  i.  24,  where 
a  deeper  death  in  sin  is  the  judicial  consequence  of  certain  forms 
and  degrees  of  transgression ;  Rom.  vii.,  where  we  suppose  spir- 
itual death  is  described  most  fully;  Rom.  viii.  6;  2  Cor.  ii.  16, 
"  a  savour  of  [or  from]  death  "  (spiritual)  "  unto  death  "  (eternal). 
Eph.  ii.  1,  where  the  "  death "  is  distinct  from  the  "  trespasses 
and  sins  " ;  Col.  ii.  13 ;  1  John  iii.  14. 

§  2.   Temporal  Death. 

The  question  as  to  the  connection  of  temporal  death  with  sin 
brings  us  into  the  comparatively  uninvestigated  region  of  the 
relation  of  the  moral  to  the  physical,  the  relations  of  sin  and  re- 
demption to  our  bodily  constitution :  of  sin  to  death,  and  of  redemp- 
tion to  a  resurrection.  The  fact  that  the  resurrection  is  a  part  of 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  267 

redemption  leads  by  inference  to  the  position  that  the  death  of 
the  body  is  a  part  of  the  evil  or  penalty  which  was  the  conse- 
quence of  sin,  and  from  which  redemption  is  to  deliver  us.  There 
is  a  spiritualizing  of  sin  and  holiness  which  abstracts  them  from 
all  relations  with  the  body,  from  all  our  natural  ties,  giving  over 
the  whole  of  physics  to  natural  science.  But  the  Scriptures  do 
'undoubtedly  maintain  a  connection  between  sin  and  the  death 
of  the  body,  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  redemption  and  the 
glorified  body,  on  the  other  hand.  A  mechanical  view  of  nature, 
and  a  merely  abstract  spiritualizing  and  reasoning  about  sin  and 
redemption,  have  led  to  attempts  to  explain  punishment  and  re- 
demption as  if  they  had  nothing,  or  little,  to  do  with  our  physi- 
cal constitution.  But  sin  infects  and  affects  the  whole  man, 
soul  and  body:  redemption  is  also  equally  extensive, — for  the 
whole  man,  soul  and  body.  Thus  only  is  the  full  idea  of  the 
Christian  redemption  realized.  Through  sin  came  disorder  in 
the  fleshly  appetites  (Gen.  iii.  7);  the  law  of  death  is  at  work 
in  our  members;  and  in  this  respect,  also,  the  sentence  began 
to  be  fulfilled  at  once.  As  to  the  connection  of  sin  with  death : 
Death  is  undoubtedly  natural  for  the  brutes,  who  have  no  proper 
spiritual  being,  each  animal  being  only  one  example  of  his 
species,  with  no  spiritual  powers  and  aspirations,  no  personal 
being.  It  is  not  so  with  man.  Death  is  not  natural  for  man, 
considering  him  from  his  spiritual  side:  it  is  unnatural:  immor- 
tality is  his  proper  attribute.  The  separation  of  soul  and  body, 
as  we  know  it,  see  it,  with  its  pain,  sorrow,  suffering,  is  an 
anomaly,  a  mystery,  an  enigma  in  our  being.  We  would  not 
say  that  if  there  were  no  sin  there  would  be  no  separation  of 
soul  and  body;  but  it  is  certainly  supposable  that  the  transi- 
tion to  another  state  might  be  made,  without  anything  of  that 
which  now  goes  to  make  up  the  terribleness  of  death.  Then  tho 
power  of  death  over  the  sinner  is  another  illustration.  It  is  clad 
in  fearfulness  to  him,  and  it  is  natural  to  consider  it  as  a  con- 
sequence of  transgression.  Man's  body,  of  course,  in  a  natural 
sense  could  have  died  like  that  of  other  animals,  but  we  cannot 
say  that  it  must  have  died.1  The  position  that  temporal  death 

1  The  "hypothetical"  (posse  non  mori)  and  "absolute"  (non  ptosso  mori) 
Immunity  from  death:  distinction  asserted  against  Pelagianism. 


268  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  a  penal  consequence  of  sin  is  confirmed  Ly  the  fact  that  re- 
demption contemplates  the  resurrection,  the  restoration  of  the 
body.  This  fact  serves  to  make  it  seem  stranger  still,  more  un- 
natural, that  there  should  be  a  separation  of  the  two  at  the  end 
of  our  present  being :  why  separated,  if  to  be  reunited  ?  It  seems 
— as  Muller  among  others  forcibly  says — that  the  only  expla- 
nation of  this  anomaly  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  revealed  in 
Scripture,  that  the  death  of  the  body  is  a  direct  consequence 
and  punishment  of -transgression.  This  makes  the  whole  Script- 
ural representation  harmonious.  Temporal  death  is  not  the  whole 
or  a  chief  part  of  the  penalty  of  transgression,  but  still  it  is  a 
part  of  the  same,  under  certain  aspects  and  in  certain  relations. 

The  passages  of  Scripture1  which  show  that  this  temporal 
death  is  included  in  the  sentence,  and  is  a  consequence  and  the 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  sin,  are  such  as  follow :  Gen.  iii.  22 ; 
Job  iv.  18,  19;  xiv.  1-4;  Horn.  v.  12  seq.;  vi.  23;  1  Cor.  xv.  21 
seq.;  xv.  56;  2  Cor.  v.  2,  4,  of.  Rom.  vii.  24;  Eph.  ii.  4;  Col.  i.  22; 
ii.  11;  2  Tim.  i.  10.  There  is  an  implied  reference  to  this  death 
also  (though  not  exclusively  to  this)  in  John  viii.  21;  xi.  26. 
In  fact,  while  in  the  Scriptures  "  death  "  is  applied  to  the  pen- 
alty in  the  future  life,  yet,  in  its  primitive  meaning,  it  refers  to 
the  dissolution  of  the  body.  For  Christians  this  death  loses  its 
terrors :  it  is  to  be  conquered  finally  by  the  resurrection  to  life : 
yet  such  is  the  state  and  power  of  sin  in  them,  so  deeply  has 
it  penetrated  their  whole  nature,  that  they  must  still  die.  The 
evil  is  changed  into  a  means  of  blessing  through  the  grace  that 
is  in  Christ.  Redemption  extends  not  only  to  pardon,  not  only 
to  deliverance  from  the  second  death  and  the  sense  of  condem- 
nation, but  it  also  embraces  and  renovates  our  whole  being.  It 
is  to  be  noted  that  this  death  is  not  merely  the  separation  of  soul 
and  body,  but  includes  pain  and  suffering.  It  therefore  includes 
whatever  may  hasten  and  aggravate  the  temporal  death. 

Objections: 

1.  Is  all  evil  and  suffering  in  this  life  penalty  for  sin? — 
Most  unquestionably  not.  But  that  does  not  touch  the  real 

1  See  Stier,  Words  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  on  John  viii.  44.  Krabbe  on  Sin: 
"There  is  no  passage  in  Scripture  in  which  there  is  not  a  lingering  allusion  t« 
temporal  death.'' 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  269 

point,  which  is,  that  there  are  evils,  sufferings,  pains,  here, 
which  under  God's  moral  government  are  punishments  for  sin. 
Those  are  such,  and  only  those,  which  in  Scripture  or  providence, 
are  seen  to  be  connected  with  sin,  naturally  or  by  infliction. 
And  still  further,  many  pains  and  evils  are  to  one  a  punishment, 
because  he  is  a  sinner,  and  are  to  another  not  a  punishment, 
because  he  is  a  servant  of  God.  Thus,  to  the  Christian,  what 
was  punishment  is  now  chastening:  his  regeneration  transforms 
it  into  a  remedial  influence.  So  far  as  sin  is  in  him,  too,  evil 
and  suffering  have  the  nature  of  punishment;  they  are  just  in- 
flictions for  his  remaining  sin :  but  still,  triumphant  over  them 
is  the  power  of  grace,  making  them  a  final  blessing.  Death 
itself  comes,  and  still  with  solemn  terrors,  for  sin  still  dwells 
within  him,  yet  also  deprived  of  its  sting,  for  grace  triumphs. 

2.  The  exclusive  penalty  of  the  law  is  eternal  death,  and 
consequently  temporal  death  is  no  part  of  the  penalty.  The 
motives  for  this  objection  are  two.  One  is,  its  bearing  on 
original  sin.  One  argument  for  the  reality  of  a  morally  evil 
condition  of  every  human  being  at  birth,  which  condition  in 
an  important  sense  is  properly  to  be  called  sinful,  is  the  death 
of  the  body:  if  men  die,  they  are  under  the  curse  of  the  law: 
if  human  beings,  as  such,  are  liable  to  death  from  the  begin- 
ning of  their  existence,  then  they  are  also  under  a  judgment  for 
sin  or  sinfulness.  In  order  to  get  rid  of  this  conclusion,  it  is 
denied  that  temporal  death  is  any  part  of  the  penalty  for  sin. 
It  is  held  to  be  consequence,  but  not  penalty :  for,  in  that  case, 
infants  suffering  penalty  would  have  a  part  in  the  sin  which 
cleaves  to  the  human  race.  The  other  motive  for  the  objection 
is  that  Christ  has  removed  the  penalty  of  transgression,  has 
taken  away  the  curse:  and  if  so,  nothing  which  the  Christian 
endures  here  can  be  a  part  of  the  penalty.  Otherwise  Christ 
did  not  endure  it  all.  Moreover,  it  is  involved  in  the  objec- 
tion, that  nothing  which  sinners  endure  here  can  be  part  of 
the  strict  penalty  for  transgression.  The  position  is  then,  that 
the  penalty  is  eternal  death  and  only  that,  and  that  there  is 
no  proper  penalty  inflicted  in  this  life  for  the  violation  of  the 
divine  law. 


270  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Remarks  or.  Objection  2. 

(a.)  What  is  meant  here  by  eternal  death,  it  is  somewha* 
difficult  to  state.  It  appears  to  mean:  those  sufferings  which 
come  after  the  final  judgment  in  execution  of  the  sentence. 
This  involves,  of  course,  the  position  that  at  the  last  judgment 
will  occur  the  first  pronouncing  and  infliction  of  the  real  sen- 
tence upon  the  sinner.  Whereas,  we  understand  that  every 
sinner  is  now  under  the  sentence.  The  great  object  of  the  judg- 
ment is  not  the  pronouncing  of  the  sentence,  but  the  winding 
up  of  the  present  course  of  things,  and  the  vindication  of  the 
divine  government. 

(5.)  We  must  note  the  logical  consequences  of  the  position 
that  the  only  penalty  of  transgression  is  eternal  death.  Then 
there  is  no  instance  of  penalty  or  punishment  in  this  life.  All 
that  we  suffer  here  comes  under  the  physical  point  of  view, — it 
is  the  appointment  of  the  divine  sovereignty, — it  comes  in 
the  way  of  consequence:  it  does  not  come  under  the  moral 
point  of  view,  as  a  just  coupling  of  evil  with  sin.  To  carry 
out  the  principle,  it  must  be  said  that  remorse  is  no  part  of 
the  penalty  of  sin  (while  it  must  be  admitted  that  remorse  is 
a  principal  part  of  eternal  death) ;  and  if  remorse  is  no  part  of 
the  penalty  of  sin,  what  is  it,  and  what  can  be  penalty  ?  More- 
over, under  the  strict  application  of  this  principle,  we  could  not 
find  an  instance  of  God's  moral  government  in  the  whole  history 
of  mankind :  and  how  is  this  to  be  reconciled  with  God's  punish- 
ments of  men  and  nations,  his  threatenings  and  fulfilment  of 
calamities,  his  visiting  of  iniquities,  etc.,  which  are  broadcast 
through  the  Scriptures  and  in  providence  ?  We  shall  be  com- 
pelled to  say  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  divine  punishment: 
one  for  the  violation  of  the  law,  and  another  for — something  else. 
The  position  that  the  whole  penalty  of  sin  is  future,  if  strictly 
enforced,  would  drive  God's  moral  government  out  of  the  earth 
for  the  sake  of  getting  rid  of  the  proof  of  original  sin.1 

1  Or,  is  a  distinction  to  be  made  between  God's  moral  and  his  legal  govern- 
ment?   If  any  concede,  however,  that  these  other  evils  are  just  "con- 
sequences "  of  transgression  under  the  divine  moral  government,  concede  them 
to  be  moral  and  not  merely  physical — not  merely  cases  of  arbitrary  sovereignty 
and  yet  prefer  to  reserve  the  word  "penalty"  for  the  second,  for  eternal,  death, 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  271 

(c.)  The  difficulty  on  the  ground  of  the  Atonement,  as  hav- 
ing taken  away  the  whole  condemnation  of  the  law,  is  removed 
by  considering  that  the  object  of  the  atonement  is  not  simply  to 
give  pardon  and  relief  from  future  condemnation,  but  to  deliver 
from  all  the  just  consequences  of  sin — though  these  may  not  all 
be  taken  away  at  once,  on  account  of  the  evil  state  remaining. 
The  atonement  not  only  provides  for  pardon,  but  for  the  re- 
moval of  spiritual  death,  and  also  for  taking  away  the  chief  evils 
of  temporal  death.  It  gives  us,  moreover,  the  resurrection  of  the 
body.  This  is  a  part  of  the  eifect  of  Christ's  work.  The  diffi- 
culty has  come  from  restricting  the  atonement  to  a  mere  pro- 
vision for  pardon. 

(d.)  The  physical  philosophers  resolve  all  punishment  into 
the  natural  consequences  of  transgression:  some  theologians 
resolve  it  all  into  an  external  infliction,  granting  that  all  the 
momentous  "consequences"  are  out  of  the  sphere  of  punish- 
ment. The  true  view  combines  both.  The  continuation  of  a  sys- 
tem in  which  evils  were  ordained  to  be  peculiarly  "consequent" 
upon  sin,  and  in  which  by  divine  providence  such  consequences 
are  often  specially  combined  and  directed  in  token  of  the  divine 
displeasure  at  transgressions,  is  a  visitation  of  penalties  in  the 
proper  sense  upon  offences.1 

§  3.  Eternal  Death, 

The  third  form  of  the  death  is  eternal.  This  is  also  called, 
the  second  death,  Eev.  ii.  11 ;  xx.  6 ;  xxi.  8.  The  term,  second 
death,  is  significant:  it  refers  back  to  a  death  already  existing; 
it  is  an  intensified  form  of  what  already  exists;  it  is  not  the  only 
penalty,  but  is  the  intense  and  final  form  of  the  penalty.  By 
eternal  death  we  understand  this:  a  continuation  through  eter- 
nity of  the  evils,  sufferings,  and  pains  which  are  the  just  con- 
sequence of  sin.  These  are  heightened,  of  course,  by  all  the 

BO  as  to  have  a  more  precise  usage  for  this  definite  case  (which  certainly  has  its 
special  circumstances):  though  they  depart  from  the  general  usage,  yet  it  may  be 
allowed,  perhaps,  as  a  mere  definition  for  one  class  of  cases. 

1  Denial  of  this  gives  a  great  advantage  to  such  writers  as  Combe.  Temporal 
evils  are  made  to  be  only  natural  consequences  of  sin,  and  the  moral  is  banished 
from  the  present  sphere. 


272  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

circumstances  of  the  then  existing  state,  by  the  fact  that  mercy 
is  lost,  that  hope  is  forever  excluded,  etc.  This  second  death  or 
final  condemnation  is  represented  in  Scripture  as  inflicted  only 
iu  view  of  actual  transgression,  and  it  is  there  represented  not 
only  as  punishment  for  violation  of  law,  but  also  for  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  gospel.  There  is  a  liability  or  exposedness  to  it  in 
all  the  members  of  Adam's  race,  but  the  reality  of  it  comes 
only  to  those  who  are  condemned  on  account  of  their  works. 
James  i.  15;  Rom.  vi.  21;  vii.  6;  1  John  v.  16. 

As  has  been  already  said,  we  cannot  regard  this  eternal,  or  sec- 
ond, death  as  a  new,  an  absolutely  distinct  form  of  the  penalty  of 
sin,  so  that  it  may  be  said  to  be  that  penalty  in  the  strict  sense, 
while  the  other  forms  are  not.  The  elements  of  eternity,  of 
hopelessness,  of  intensified  evil,  are  added,  but  the  very  epithet, 
eternal,  implies  that  it  is  death  continued  through  eternity.  Still 
further,  if  the  temporal  evils  can  all  be  regarded  as  only  the 
consequence  of  transgression,  eternal  death  might  equally  be 
regarded  as  a  consequence:  and  if  the  eternal  death  is  a  penalty, 
then  the  temporal  death  may  be  a  penalty.  We  cannot  con- 
ceive of  an  element  in  the  eternal  penalty,  of  which  there  is  not 
an  analogy  or  beginning  in  our  temporal  lot.  The  contrary 
persuasion  seems  to  us  to  rest  on  a  merely  external  theory  of 
punishment,  taken  by  figure  from  human  justice. 

Summary. 

Death,  in  its  most  general  idea,  as  the  penalty  of  the  law, 
includes  all  the  evils  and  sufferings  which  come  upon  us,  justly, 
under  God's  moral  government,  in  consequence  of  the  transgres- 
sion of  the  divine  law.  The  object  of  the  penalty  is  to  give 
sanction  to  the  law,  testifying  to  God's  displeasure  at  sin.  In 
a  state  of  probation,  these  evils  may  also  be  means  of  trial,  and 
may  even  become  only  chastisements.  They  may  be  internal  or 
external:  remorse  and  pain  of  soul,  or  sufferings  and  death  of 
the  body.  The  loss  of  the  divine  favor  and  of  the  Divine  Spirit 
is  also  amongst  them.  In  short,  the  general  notion  of  death  is 
separation  from  God  and  from  all  good,  on  the  one  hand,  and 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.          273 

on  the  other,  suffering;  as  the  consequences,  the  penal  conse- 
quences, of  transgression.  It  corresponds  to  "life,"  which  in- 
cludes all  good,  and  as  the  expression  of  divine  approbation,  as 
the  award  to  obedience.  More  specifically,  death  is  (a.)  spiritual, 
the  forfeiture  of  the  Spirit,  moral  inability,  the  internal  legiti- 
mate consequence  of  sin — perhaps  including  remorse;  (b.)  Evils 
and  pains — perhaps  including  here  remorse — closing  in  death  of 
the  body;  (c.)  Most  specifically,  death,  as  the  full  penalty  of  sin, 
is  eternal:  it  is  hopeless  misery,  all  the  consequences  of  sin  and 
wretchedness  inflicted  in  various  ways  in  God's  providence,  en- 
during forever.  This,  in  the  highest  sense,  is  the  penalty  of  the 
law.  As  to  Adam,  when  he  sinned,  he  came  at  once  to  a  state 
of  spiritual  death,  the  curse  of  temporal  death  began  to  work 
(we  may  suppose  that  the  withdrawal  of  the  Spirit  gave  such 
supremacy  to  the  bodily  appetites  that  they  began  to  derange 
the  bodily  constitution,  making  it  certain  that  death  would 
ensue),  and  he  was  justly  exposed  to  eternal  death,  from  which 
only  grace  could  rescue  him. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  FALL  TO  THE  HUMAN  RACE. 

Answer  to  Q.  17,  Westm.  Shorter  Oatech.:  "  The  fall  brought 
mankind  into  an  estate  of  sin  and  misery;" — to  Q.  16,  "The 
covenant  being  made  with  Adam,  not  only  for  himself,  but 
for  all  his  posterity,  all  mankind,  descending  from  him  by  ordi- 
nary generation,  sinned  in  him,  and  fell  with  him  in  his  first 
transgression." 

The  emphasis  here  is  on  mankind :  the  fall  affected  man  as 
man,  every  man  as  a  member  of  the  human  race.  The  divine  deal- 
ing was  with  Adam,  not  only  for  himself,  but  as  "  a  public  per- 
son " :  all  mankind,  descending  from  him  ~by  ordinary  generation^ 


274  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

are  involved  in  his  first  act  of  disobedience.  No  personal  pres- 
ence of  individuals  is  intended  to  be  asserted.  The  idea  is  this: 
Adam  is  not  only  the  individual  man  Adam,  but  the  head  of 
the  race:  all  the  race  is  from  him  by  natural  descent:  he  was 
created  innocent,  and. fell:  his  transgression  involved  us,  not  in 
a  personal  sense,  or  in  our  personal  relations,  but  so  far  as  we 
have  the  common  position  and  liabilities  of  the  whole  race  under 
the  divine  government.  In  consequence  of  his  first  sin,  all  men 
come  into  the  world  alienated  from  God,  prepense  to  sin,  and 
exposed  or  liable  to  eternal  death,  unless  grace  interpose.  Thia 
is  the  simple  fact  of  the  case.  It  is  not  so  much  a  theory  as 
the  statement  of  a  fact.  The  Scriptures  trace  this  condition  of 
mankind,  this  common  estate,  back  to  the  transgression  of  Adam. 
Whether  this  is  viewed  as  a  matter  of  pure  divine  sovereignty, 
or  of  justice,  does  not  alter  the  facts  of  the  case.  Even  if  it  is 
sovereignty,  it  must  be  in  some  sense  a  just  sovereignty.  The 
doctrine  then  does  not  immediately  concern  individual  responsi- 
bility as  such,  but  has  to  do  with  the  common  heritage  and  con- 
dition of  humanity.  The  question  about  individual  responsibility, 
desert,  and  destiny,  is  distinguishable  and  to  be  kept  distinct. 
Although  the  two  run  into  each  other,  yet  we  can  draw  the  line, 
viz.,  in  personal  consent  to  sin  and  evil.  There  personal  respon- 
sibility arises,  but  whether  all  that  is  moral,  or  all  that  concerns 
the  divine  moral  government,  begins  there — is  quite  a  different 
question. 

§  1.  Sin  as  known  by  Experience. 

All  men,  even  in  their  natural  state,  know  that  they  are  not 
as  they  ought  to  be ;  that  they  are  living  in  a  state  of  alienation 
from  God.  A  sense  of  sin  and  guilt  has  always  attended  the 
human  race.  But  the  full  power  of  sin  is  known  only  by  the 
redeemed,  to  whom  the  law  has  been  a  schoolmaster  to  bring 
them  to  Christ.  Grace  has  taught  them  in  respect  to  sin.  Every 
Christian  knows  that  there  is  in  him  by  nature,  and  in  him  still, 
a  profound  depth  of  sin:  he  experiences  its  power  in  daily  con- 
flicts, in  the  necessity  of  constant  self-denial.  He  knows  sin 
as  the  state  of  alienation  from  God.  and  as  lust  for  the  world, 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  275 

as  the  higher  and  the  lower  forms  of  selfishness:  the  higher 
being  pride,  independence  of  God;  and  the  lower,  that  which 
leads  us  to  seek  the  world.  He  sees  that,  in  his  natural  state,  his 
heart's  affections  are  perverted,  his  understanding  is  darkened, 
his  will  is  set  in  him  to  do  evil.  Thus  no  one  feels  or  fully 
knows  the  terrible  power  of  sin,  until  he  is  renewed  or  is  in  the 
process  of  renewal. 

This  corruption  and  evil  of  human  nature,  reaching  to  its 
very  depths,  the  sinner  under  conviction  and  the  Christian 
acknowledge  and  feel  to  be  guilt;  it  makes  the  soul  guilty  be- 
fore God;  God  cannot  but  look  upon  it  with  displeasure  and  ab- 
horrence, and  visit  it  with  his  judgments. 

It  is  also — this  too  is  a  matter  of  experience — so  deeply 
rooted  and  grounded  in  man  that  he  can  be  delivered  from  its 
power  only  by  redemptive  grace;  he  feels  the  need  of  atoning 
blood.  He  knows  that  so  far  as  there  is  in  him  anything  good, 
it  is  from  grace  alone;  in  all  the  course,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end,  grace  leads,  enlightens,  renews,  sanctities,  and  grace 
alone.  "  It  is  a  striking  fact  in  Scripture,  that  statements  of 
the  depth  and  power  of  sin  are  chiefly  from  the  regenerate.'' 
(Thomasius.) 

§  2.   The  universal  Sinfulness  of  Hen  as  testified  to  in  Scripture. 

The  general  position:  The  whole  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments rest  on  the  presupposition  of  the  universality  of  depravity. 

I. — The  confessions  of  those  who  have  been  renewed.  They 
speak,  in  Scripture,  of  their  own  experience.  1  Kings  viii.  46; 
Job  ix.  2;  xiv.  4;  xv.  14;  Ps.  li.  6,  7,  10;  Eccles.  vii.  20;  Prov.  xx. 
9;  1  John  i.  8-10;  Rom.  vii.  15-25, — the  two  passages  Rom.  vii. 
14-25  and  viii.  1-11  exhibit  the  two  sides  of  regeneration:  still 
the  sense  is  to  show  the  terrible  power  and  depth  of  sin  in  us; 
Gal.  v.  17,  showing  that  even  in  good  men  the  power  of  sin  is 
so  strong  that  all  their  goodness  is  from  grace:  the  conflict  in 
them  is  between  grace  and  nature. 

II. — Passages  which  speak  directly  of  the  universality  of 
sinfulness.  Gen.  vi.  5,  "heart,"  center  of  moral  life:  "imagina- 
tion" and  "  thoughts"  from  that — though  this  is  not  to  be  toe 


2T6  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

strongly  urged;  Gen.  viii.  21;  Ps.  xiv, — this  is  the  judgment  of 
God  on  man  (Paul  cites  it  in  Rom.  iii.  10-12)  for  all,  Jews  and 
heathen.  "The  Old  Testament  has  no  passage  in  which  the 
universality  and  depth  of  human  corruption  is  so  powerfully 
depicted"  (Hengstenberg);  Ps.  cxliii.  2;  Eccl.  ix.  3;  Jer.  xvii 
9;  Matt.  xv.  19;  John  iii.  6;  Gal.  iii.  22. 

It  is  objected  that  the  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  partic- 
ularly Gen.  vi.  5,  and  viii.  21,  treat  of  those  times  only.  But  in 
the  New  Testament  the  writers  cite  similar  passages  as  univer- 
sally true:  e.  g.,  Is.  vi.  10  is  cited  in  John  xii.  40  (and  elsewhere); 
and  Rom.  iii.  10-18  contains  citations  from  Ps.  v. ;  x. ;  xiv. ;  xxxvi. ; 
cxl. ;  and  Is.  lix. 

III. — The  assertions  of  Scripture  as  to  the  nature  and  neces- 
sity of  Regeneration  prove  the  universality  of  depravity.  Only 
two  states  of  men  are  known  or  recognized.  The  two  states 
in  contrast:  Eph.  iv.  22-24;  2  Pet.  i.  4.  The  nature  and  neces- 
sity of  regeneration :  John  iii.  7.  The  necessity  of  regeneration : 
Rom.  vii.  14;  John  iii.  5;  Eph.  iv.  18;  Eph.  ii.  1,  5;  Col.  ii.  13. 
Compare  Matt.  xvi.  24;  John  xii.  25;  Rom.  vi.  4-6;  Gal.  v.  24 

IV. — The  assertions  of  Scripture  as  to  the  necessity  and  na- 
ture of  Redemption  show  a  universal  depravity  of  the  human 
race,  (a.)  If  the  atonement  is  general,  for  all  mankind,  then 
all  mankind  must  be  in  a  sinful  state.  The  depravity  must  be 
universal,  because  the  atonement  is  to  deliver  men  from  a  sin 
ful  condition:  Rom.  v.  18;  Heb.  ii.  9;  2  Tim.  i.  10.  (b.)  Man 
cannot  deliver  himself,  cannot  "live  "by  the  law:  Rom.  iii.  19; 
iv.  15;  vii.  14;  Eph.  ii.  15.  (c.)  The  gospel  is  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sins:  Luke  xxiv.  47;  (d.)  No  one  coraeth  to  the  Father  but 
through  Christ:  John  xiv.  6;  Acts  iv.  12;  Matt.  xvi.  16;  John  i. 
12,  13;  iii.  14,  15;  Rom:  iii.  9,  19,  20,  23;  Rom.  T.  12-19;  Gal.  iii.  27. 

§  3.  This  universal  Depravity  is  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  as 
total,  i.  e.,  as  affecting  the  whole  Man. 

The  proof  of  this  is,  to  some  extent,  the  same  as  the  proof  of 
the  universality  of  sinfulriess,  which  shows  that  man  is  depraved 
as  far  as  the  affections  of  the  heart  and  the  external  acts  of  the 
will  are  concerned.  As  to  the  influence  of  depravity  on  the  intel- 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  277 

lect,  the  Scriptures  have  statements  such  as  the  following:  Eph. 
iv.  18 ;  1  Cor.  ii.  14,  which  shows  that  the  gospel  first  gives  true 
light;  Eph.  v.  8;  2  Cor.  iv.  6;  John  i.  5;  iii.  19;  2  Cor.  iii.  18.  So, 
sin  is  "folly,"  "blindness,"  "darkness":  Is.  xlix.  9;  Prov.  xiv.  8; 
Rom.  ii.  19 ;  2  Cor.  vi.  14. 

By  "  total  depravity  "  is  never  meant  that  men  are  as  bad  as 
they  can  be;  nor  that  they  have  not  in  their  natural  condition 
certain  amiable  qualities;  nor  that  they  may  not  have  virtues  in 
a  limited  sense  (justitia  civilis).  But  it  is  meant  that  depravity, 
or  the  sinful  condition,  of  man  infects  the  whole  man :  intellect, 
feeling,  heart,  and  will;  and  that  in  each  unrenewed  person  sorno 
lower  affection  is  supreme,  and  that  each  such  is  destitute  of 
true  love  to  God.  On  these  positions:  as  to  (a.)  the  power  of 
depravity  over  the  whole  man,  we  have  given  proof  from  Script- 
ure1; as  to  (6.)  the  fact  that  in  every  unrenewed  man  some 
lower  affection  is  supreme,  experience  may  be  always  appealed 
to:  men  know  that  their  supreme  affection  is  fixed  on  some 
lower  good — intellect,  heart,  and  will  going  together  in  it,  or 
that  some  form  of  selfishness  is  predominant — using  selfish  in  a 
general  sense — self  seeking  its  happiness  in  some  inferior  object, 
giving  that  its  supreme  affection;  as  to  (c.),  that  every  unre- 
newed person  is  without  supreme  love  to  God,  it  is  the  point 
which  is  of  greatest  force,  and  is  to  be  urged  with  the  strongest 
effect,  in  setting  forth  the  depth  and  "  totality  "  of  man's  sinful- 
ness:  unrenewed  men  have  not  that  supreme  love  to  God  which 
is  the  substance  of  the  first  and  great  command. 

§  4.   This  depraved  State  is  native  to  Men. 
Man  has  such  a  nature  that  he  uniformly  sins ;  it  is  as  cer- 
tain that  he  will  sin  as  that  he  will  speak  or  reason.     He  will 

1  Experience  and  observation  also  furnish  proof.  Aristotle,  Eth.  vi.  12:  "  For 
depravity  perverts  the  vision  and  causes  it  to  be  deceived  on  the  principles  of 
action,  so  that  it  is  clearly  impossible  for  a  person  who  is  not  good  to  be  really 
wise  or  prudent."  Quintilian:  "The  orator  is  a  good  man,  skilled  in  speaking," 
cited  from  Cato,  and  adds:  "  Goodness  in  a  man  is  the  greater  and  more  impor- 
tant quality."  "The  pure  heart  maketh  a  clear  head."  Carlyle  (on  Mirabeau): 
"  The  real  quality  of  our  insight,  how  justly  and  thoroughly  we  shall  comprehend 
the  nature  of  a  thing,  especially  of  a  human  thing,  depends  on  our  patience,  oui 
fairness,  lovingness,  what  strength  so  ever  we  have;  intellect  comes  from  the 
whole  man,  as  it  is  the  light  that  enlightens  the  whole  man." 


278  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

exercise  his  mora,  powers  in  transgression  as  certainly  as  lie 
begins  to  speak  or  act.  "  Native  "  is  here  used  in  the  general 
sense  of  what  belongs  by  nature  to  the  human  constitution  so 
that  it  will  be  acted  out. 

I. — The  rational  grounds  for  calling  this  state  native  or 
connatural. 

1.  We  cannot  trace  it  back  in  experience  to  any  deliberate 
choice,  but  only  to  a  spontaneous  preference. 

2.  Sin  begins  to  show  itself,  probably  as  soon  as  it  can,  in  all 
children.     As  soon  as  sin  could  be  manifested,  it  is  manifested, 
in  all. 

3.  This  has  been  the  case  everywhere,  with  all  men,  in  all 
ages,  under  the  most  varied  circumstances.     There  have  been 
no  exceptions,  unless  where  grace  may  have  been  bestowed  be- 
fore moral  action  has  commenced. 

4.  This  depravity  is  such  that  men  come  into  a  different  state, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  only  through  and  by  divine  grace.     In  every 
case  divine  grace  has  been  the  source  of  different  action,  and 
divine   grace    acting    against,    subduing    and    renovating   ihe 
nature. 

Now,  on  rational  grounds,  it  is  inconceivable  that  such  should 
be  the  state  of  the  case,  if  there  were  not  a  specific  bias  to  what 
is  sinful,  somehow,  in  man  as  man.  There  is  a  determinate  rea- 
son in  man's  state,  why  he  should  sin,  rather  than  not  sin. 
There  is  as  much  proof  of  a  spontaneous  out-going  of  the  soul 
in  the  way  of  worldliness  and  selfishness,  as  of  anything  spon- 
taneous in  man.  This  depraved  state  cannot  be  accounted  for 
by  the  mere  power  of  choice:  that  gives  no  reason  why  the 
acts  of  choice  are  sinful  and  not  otherwise. 

Objections. 

1.  Adam  sinned  once  without  such  predisposition,  why  not 
all  his  descendants? 

Answer,  (a.)  That  which  may  be  possible  in  a  single  case  is 
not  probable  for  a  race.  (&.)  The  Scriptures  make  a  difference 
between  Adam's  case  and  the  case  of  men  in  general.  He  is 
represented  as  having  begun  his  course  in  innocence,  and  his 
sin  of  course  implies  a  fall  from  that  state  of  innocence.  The 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  279 

case  is  not  said  to  be  such  with  any  other  member  of  the  hu- 
man race.1 

2.  Sin  may  be  accounted  for  by  bad  example.     This  is  the 
Pelagian  view. 

But  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  universality  of  the  bad 
example  ?  This  is  simply  using  the  effect  to  account  for  the 
cause.  How  happens  it  that  bad  examples  have  such  universal 
influence,  and  why  do  not  good  examples — as  of  pious  parents — • 
have  an  equally  good  influence  ? 

3.  Depravity  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the 
senses,  that  man's  animal  nature  is  earliest  developed.     This 
is  the  nationalistic  ground. 

But  in  the  senses  and  in  man's  animal  nature  as  animal,  there 
is  nothing  sinful  in  and  of  itself.  There  is  nothing  sinful  in 
any  animal  propensity  taken  in  its  proper  place.  The  difficulty 
still  remains.  Why  do  the  senses  and  the  animal  part  of  man 
always  take  this  form  of  selfishness  and  worldliness  ?  Why  are 
these  always  supreme  ?  Why  is  man  subject  to  the  world  and 
sense  ? 

4.  This  doctrine  of  a  connatural  depravity  supposes  a  posi- 
tive principle  of  evil  in  the  soul  as  a  specific  thing,  and  that 
implanted  by  divine  power  or  agency.     God  must  create  this 
principle  of  sin  in  the  soul. 

The  common  orthodox  view  is  that  from  the  absence  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  justly  withheld,  the  supremacy  of  the  lower  and 
selfish  principles  naturally  follows,  without  a  specific  principle 
of  evil.2 

5.  This  doctrine   supposes  the  very  nature  of  man  to  bo 
depraved. 

The  word,  nature,  is  used  in  different  senses.  It  is  somo- 
tiraes  meant  to  imply  simply  the  constitutional  faculties  and 
endowments.  In  that  sense  it  is  not  claimed  or  said  that 
man's  nature  is  depraved.  It  is  also  used  in  the  sense  of  the 
bias  or  bent  of  human  nature,  a  state  of  the  faculties,  their 
bent,  disposition,  underlying  principle.  In  this  sense  the  na« 

1  See  Edwards,  Orig.  Sin,  261. 

2  On  this  point  Edwards  has  a  noble  passage,  ii.  477. 


280  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ture  is  depraved;  because  that  bent  or  bias  is  the  evil  principle 
Perhaps  it  is  not  strictly  accurate  to  call  it  a  depravity  of  nature 
because  nature  is  more  frequently  used  in  the  previous  sense. 
According  to  Caivinistic  theology,  depravity  is  of  the  accidents 
and  not  of  the  substance  of  human  nature;  i.  e.,  it  is  separable. 
A  renewal  of  the  soul  does  not  suppose  a  change  in  the  physi- 
cal constitution,  but  a  change  in  the  moral  principle  that  is  in 
man.  "  Principle  "  is  defined  by  Edwards  as  a  foundation  laid  in 
human  nature  for  a  particular  kind  of  exercises.  It  is  not  the 
faculties  themselves,  but  the  direction  of  those  faculties. 
II. — Scriptural  Proof  that  depravity  is  connatural. 

1.  The  strongest  proof  is  found  in  the  Scriptural  usage  of  the 
word  <5dps,  translated  flesh.     John  iii.  6,  here  "  the  flesh  "  includes 
the  natural  birth,  but  "flesh  "  is  not  that  which  is  not  spiritual,  our 
material  frame,  but  the  principle  opposite  to  that  which  is  spir- 
itual:  the   passage   contains   birth,   sinfulness,   and  derivation. 
"  The  flesh  "  means  that  which  is  native  to  man.     The  fact  that 
it  also  means  the  bodily  constitution  makes  the  proof  complete 
that  depravity  is  native.     Our  evil   desires  are  traced  to   the 
"  flesh,"  as  our  good  desires  are  traced  to  the  spirit.     Eom.  vii. 
18:  Flesh  is  here  not  merely  the  equivalent  of  sinfulness,  but 
the  whole  man  in  his  present  sinful  condition.     Sin  is  spoken  of 
as  dwelling  in  the  flesh.     Gal.  v.  19-21:  The  inclusion  here  of 
heresies  in  the  works  of  the  flesh  shows  that  the  word  is  not 
restricted  to  the  physical  sphere.     Kom.  viii.  6 :  The  mind  of  the 
flesh.     Eph.  iv.  18 :  Here  to  the  flesh  is  attributed  understanding. 
In  Gal.  v.  17  we  also  see  that  the  flesh  is  not  a  mere  state,  but  an 
impelling  power — kitiSvpe'i.     The  essential  thing  in  this  flesh  is, 
then,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  not  merely  a  sensual  condition, 
or  any  overbalance  of  the  senses,  but  the  principle  of  sin.     The 
word  designates  the  whole  natural  man,  in  all  his  movements  of 
heart,  mind  and  will:  it  is  used  to  describe  man  as  estranged 
from  God,  from  life,  and  subject  to  sin  and  death:  hence  its  con- 
stant antagonism  with  spirit. 

2.  Besides  this  use  of  <?<*>?,  there  are  other  passages  of  Script- 
ure showing  that  depravity  is  traced  to  a  native  state.     Ps.  li.  4: 
David,  in  the  deepest  penitence,  is  confessing  his  sin — sin  so  deep 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION,  281 

in  him  that  he  traces  it  to  his  very  birth  (as  the  next  verse  shows). 
There  are  only  two  possible  interpretations:  (a.)  that  the  sin 
referred  to  is  that  of  David's  mother.  But  it  is  a  singular  time 
for  him  to  take  to  confess  his  mother's  sin.  (6.)  It  refers  to  his 
own  native  state,  his  condition  by  birth.  It  means,  my  state, 
as  I  came  from  my  mother's  womb,  was  a  state  of  sinfulness.1 
The  only  way  of  escaping  this  is  taking  it  poetically.  Eph. 
ii.  3 :  The  sense  which  the  term  flesh  has  here  has  been  already 
defined.  The  word  " nature"  is  to  be  considered.  Let  the  con 
nection  be  noted:  "lusts  of  the  flesh";  words  which  express  the 
native  condition  and  tendencies  as  fully  as  any  can  do,  and 
"  were  by  nature  children  of  wrath "  (wrath2  must  mean  wrath 
divine;  the  attempt  of  Maurice  to  render  "  children  of  impulse" 
is  without  support).  Actual  transgressions  were  already  ex- 
pressed, "among  whom  also  we  all,"  etc.;  he  could  have  said,  on 
account  of  these  active  desires  we  were  children  of  wrath,  but 
what  he  does  is  to  add  another  circumstance  to  these  actual 
sins,  "and  were  by  nature,"  etc.3  The  unemphatic  position  of 
q>v<5si  (T&KVOL  q>v6et  opyrjs)  is  important.  "  It  is  an  indirect  and 
therefore  more  convincing  assertion  "  of  original  sin.4  <pvtiet  in 
Gal.  ii.  15,  means,  transmitted,  inborn;  in  Rom.  ii.  14, — inherent; 
in  Gal.  iv.  8, — essential,  nature.  The  only  interpretation  by 
which  this  conclusion  can  be  avoided  is:  "we  were  by  nature 
such  that  we  became  through  our  own  act  the  children  of  wrath."6 
But  if  the  apostle  had  meant  this,  he  could  have  said  so ;  there 
is  a  proper  Greek  word  for  "  became  " :  the  word  which  is  used 
can  only  be  rendered  "  were."  There  may  be  discussion  as  to 
the  full  extent  of  the  wrath,  and  the  character  of  the  native 
depravity;  but  as  to  the  fact  of  such  a  depravity  and  of  its 
being,  in  some  sense,  an  object  of  divine  displeasure,  there  can  be 

1  De  Wette's  translation:  "Behold  with  a  sinful  nature  was  I  born,  yea,  im  my 
mother's  womb  did  I  possess  it."    Tholuck:  "David  confesses  that  sin  begins 
with  the  life  of  man;  that  not  only  his  works,  but  the  man  himself,  is  guilty  be- 
fore God." 

2  In  thirty-four  other  places  in  the  New  Testament  the  word  has  only  the 
usual  sense— the  punitive  justice  of  God. 

3  See  Harless  on  Ephesians.     See  also  Miiller,  Sin,  ii.  306. 

*  Ellicott. 

*  Dr.  Taylor's  "Concio  ad  clerum." 


282  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

no  doubt,  from  this  passage.1     Job  xv.  14,  shows  that  »in  is 
hereditary.     It  is  to  be  viewed  in  connection  with  xiv.  1. 
Objections. 

1.  The  Scriptures  speak  of  children  as  innocent:  Matt,  xvifi. 
3;  xix.  13;  Luke  xviii.  17. 

These  passages  undoubtedly  imply  a  relative  innocence  of 
children,  but  they  do  not  do  away  with  the  depravity  or  native 
propensity  to  sin  in  us,  because  the  children  are  to  come  to 
Christ,  and  Christ  is  a  Saviour.  The  very  fact  that  they  are  to 
come  to  Him  proves  that  they  need  a  renewal.2 

2.  From  certain  expressions  of  Scripture,     (a.)  1  John  iii.  4: 
This  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  nearest  to  a  definition  of  sin 
which  the  Bible  contains.    But  the  rendering  should  not  be  "  sin  is 
the  transgression  of  the  law,"  but,  "  sin  is  non-conformity  to  the 
law." 8    This  passage  is  urged  to  prove  that  all  sin  is  in  exer- 
cises, but  it  rather  shows,  under  strict  translation,  that  sin  is  a 
state.     (6.)  James  i.  15 :  This  is  urged  to  prove  that  sin,  prop- 
erly speaking,  only  exists  when  it  is  "brought  forth"  in  con- 
scious activity,  but  what  it  really  shows  is,  that  "  the  lust "  is 
that  which  produces  sin,  that  like  begets  like.    The  sin  produced 
shows  the  sinful  disposition.     Instead  of  proving  that  such  a 
disposition  is  not  sinful,  the  passage  proves  the  contrary.    These 
passages  confirm  the  general  definition  of  sin  given  in  the  West- 
minster Catechism,  which  is  probably  the  best  that  can  be  given : 
"  Sin  is  any  want  of  conformity  unto,  or  transgression  of,  the 
law  of  God." 

»  Besides  these  passages,  Miiller  also  cites  1  Cor.  vii.  U  (ii.  376). 

2  There  is  a  relative  innocence.  Ps.  cvi.  38:  The  "innocent  blood"  is  the 
blood,  not  of  children,  nor  of  innocence  before  God.  So,  2  Kings  xxiv.  4. 
Jonah  iv.  11  is  a  proverbial  expression.  Bom.  ix.  11  simply  states  that  moral 
quality  can  only  attach  to  moral  existence. 

8  [Revised  Version:  "sin  is  lawlessness."] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  283 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ORIGINAL   SIN. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  general  facts  as  to  human 
sinfulness,  and  have  traced  them  back  to  a  sinful,  corrupt  incli- 
nation or  tendency.  This  only  brings  us  to  the  verge  of  the 
real  problem,  which  is  contained  in  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin. 

We  have  here  the  question  of  IMPUTATION.  This  turns  upon 
the  three  terms:  sin,  guilt,  and  punishment.  If  we  define  all 
these  by  their  relation  to  personal  acts  exclusively,  we  cannot 
apply  them  to  any  native  condition  or  race  relation ;  there  can 
be  in  no  sense  a  moral  oneness  of  mankind  in  the  sight  of  God, 
and  no  such  moral  dealing  on  his  part  with  mankind  as  is 
intended  to  be  expressed  in  the  term  Imputation:  in  a  word, 
there  cannot  be  any  Original  Sin.  But  we  should  understand 
that  this  result  is  due  purely  to  the  definition  we  have  made, 
and  that  we  have  dismissed  the  problem,  not  solved  it. 

An  important  question  as  to  the  statements  in  the  West- 
minster Confession  (Conf.  vi.  3,  Larger  Cat.,  Q.  25,  Shorter 
Cat,  Q.  18)  may  be  here  briefly  considered.  In  the  three  chief 
articles  indicated  above,  the  following  statement  is  reiterated: 
The  sinfulness  of  man's  estate,  or,  original  sin,  consists:  (a.)  In 
the  guilt  of  Adam's  first  sin,  (6.)  the  want  of  original  righteous- 
ness, and  (c.)  the  corruption  of  his  whole  nature.  The  question 
is:  Are  these  three  statements  co-ordinate  or  successive?  Is  it 
meant  that  the  sinfulness  of  man's  estate  consists  in  the  guilt 
of  Adam's  first  sin,  which  was  followed  by  the  want  of  original 
righteousness  and  by  the  corruption  of  his  whole  nature  ?  If 
that  is  the  sense  then  the  strict  theory  of  Immediate  Imputation 
has  a  foothold  in  the  Confession,  but  if  that  is  not  the  sense, 
then  it  has  not.  To  us  it  seems  plain  that  these  phrases  were 
intended  to  be  co-ordinate,  and  that  no  causal  relation  between 
them  is  meant  to  be  expressed.  "  Guilt "  is  liability  or  exposed- 
ness  to  penal  evil.  It  does  not  mean  exclusively  personal  ill- 
desert.  It  has  in  theology  a  well  authenticated  meaning,  though 


284  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

in  the  modern  sense  it  is  applied  in  strictness  only  to  personal  ill 
desert.  But  in  the  Confession  guilt  is  exposure  to  punishment. 
The  imputation  is  not  said  to  be  of  the  sin,  but  of  the  guilt  of 
that  sin.  That  is  the  strict  sense.  If  it  were  an  imputation  of  sin, 
then  it  might  be  that  our  natural  sinfulness  as  coming  from  Adam 
might  be  included  in  the  imputation:  but  as  imputation  here  is 
exposure  to  punishment,  it  cannot  be  said  that  our  sinfulness  is  a 
part  of  the  imputation,  unless  it  be  also  said  that  sin  is  a  part  of 
the  punishment.  In  the  article  in  the  Confession  (vi.  3),  the  nat- 
ural relationship  of  mankind  to  Adam  is  put  first:  "  they  being  the 
root  of  all  mankind."  This  fact  that  all  mankind  were  contained 
in  them  as  the  root  appears  to  be  taken  as  the  ground  of  the  proced- 
ure of  imputation.  This  is  the  view  taken  in  Mediate  Imputation,1 
i  e.,  that  the  natural  headship  comes  first,  and  that  the  federal 
headship  is  grounded  upon  it.  It  is  not  said  that  the  want  of 
the  original  righteousness,  and  the  death  in  sin,  and  the  cor- 
rupted nature,  were  a  part  of  the  imputation ;  and  this  must  be 
said  to  sustain  the  strict  theory  of  Immediate  Imputation;  the 
corruption  must  be  a  part  of  what  is  imputed. 

Another  statement.  Immediate  Imputation,  in  its  extreme 
form,2  is  the  theory  of  the  federal  headship  of  Adam  in  distinc- 
tion from  the  natural  headship.  It  says,  God  determined  to 
create  a  certain  number,  and  He  determined  that  they  should 
fall  into  sin,  and  that  out  of  that  fallen  mass  some  should  be 
redeemed.  As  yet  it  is  only  a  hypothetical  possible  number  of 
individuals  who  are  thus  to  fall,  and  of  whom  some  are  to  be 
redeemed.  Adam  is  appointed  in  the  divine  purpose  to  be  the 
federal  head  of  all  that  come  into  this  world,  to  stand  as  their 
representative.  Adam  is  to  stand  for  all  those  supposed  and 
supposable  individuals  who  are  to  live  here, — to  stand  for  them 
as  a  federal  head,  as  much  as  a  representative  in  congress  stands 

J(In  its  higher  form.  There  is  a  form,  at  least  one  attributed  by  opponents, 
which  allows  no  federal  headship  to  Adam,  and  makes  the  corruption  in  the  indi* 
vidual  the  only  ground  of  imputation.] 

2  [In  this  country  the  most  influential  advocates  of  Immediate  Imputation— 
the  Princeton  theologians — have  not  urged  it  in  this  form.  The  supralapsarian 
elements  are  disavowed  by  them.  See  Dr.  Charles  Hodge's  Systematic  Theology 
%nd  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge's  Outlines.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  285 

for  the  people  of  his  district.  What  Adam  does  is  to  be  reckoned 
to  their  account,  they  as  yet  being  by  supposition  without  any 
character,  but  as  Adam  does,  so  they  are  to  become.  Because 
he  sins,  they  are  likewise  to  come  under  the  penalty  of  sin.  Then 
in  order  that  that  may  be  carried  out,  God  makes  this  Adam 
(who  is  hypothetical  as  yet)  to  be  the  head  of  a  race,  in  order 
that  what  he  does  may  be  transmitted  down  to  all  those  indi- 
viduals for  whom  he  stood.  The  natural  headship  is  instituted  in 
order  to  carry  out  the  federal  headship.  And  the  sinful  condition  of 
every  member  of  this  race  is  a  punishment  for  Adam's  sin.  Each 
individual  is  punished  for  Adam's  sin  by  being  made  sinful. 
Adarn  is  said  to  stand  for  them  all,  and  what  he  does  is  immedi- 
ately made  over  to  them.  The  theory  of  Mediate  Imputation 
on  the  other  hand  is,  that  God  makes  Adam  to  be  the  head  of  a 
race:  he  sins:  in  consequence  of  his  sin,  because  he  is  the  head 
of  a  race,  all  his  descendants  are  born  in  a  sinful  condition,  not 
as  a  punishment,  but  in  the  way  of  a  natural  connection,  and  the 
punishment  of  each  is  on  the  ground  of  the  sinful  condition  of 
each,  including  as  filial  punishment  his  own  personal  acts  and 
ill-desert.  Punishment  is  always  based  on  sin,  and  each  indi- 
vidual's punishment  is  based  upon  what  he  is  as  an  individual. 
The  infliction  of  punishment  is  on  the  ground  of  the  sinful 
nature,  and  just  as  much  in  Adam's  descendants  as  in  Adam 
himself.1  The  relation  of  Adam's  transgression  to  ourselves,  ac- 
cording to  the  statement  in  the  Catechism,  is  not  to  be  viewed  as 
that  of  an  individual  transgressing  for  us  as  individuals.  Adam 
is  not  only  the  individual  Adam,  but  the  head  of  the  race;  all 

1  [It  should  be  remembered  that  the  author  is  here  stating  what  is  commonly 
understood  by  Immediate  and  Mediate  Imputation,  and  is  not  giving  his  own 
view.  On  the  whole  he  favored  the  theory  of  Mediate  Imputation,  yet  not  pre- 
cisely in  the  form  as  given  above.  There  is  a  note  in  his  papers  which  reads 
thus:  "Neither  Mediate  nor  Immediate  Imputation  is  wholly  satisfactory." 
There  is  no  further  explanation,  but  it  is  probable  that  one  point  of  the  theory  of 
Mediate  Imputation  as  it  is  sometimes  urged,  which  he  found  unsatisfactory,  was 
the  position  stated  above:  "the  punishment  of  each  is  [exclusively]  on  the  ground 
of  the  sinful  condition  of  each."  This  fixes  the  divine  regard  in  the  matter  of 
imputation  upon  the  isolated  individual,  viewed  as  corrupt  before  personal  action, 
etc.,  and  leaves  out  of  consideration  all  race  liabilities,  which  the  author  elsewhere 
strongly  insists  upon.  It  would  seem  that  he  intended  to  assert  a  proper  federal 
headship  based  upon  the  natural;  but  it  is  much  to  be  lamented  that  this  note 
ia  the  Only  indication  of  the  final  statement  which  he  had  in  mind*] 


286  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

the  race  come  from  him  by  natural  descent;  he  was  created 
innocent,  and  fell;  his  transgression  does  not  involve  us  in  a 
personal  sei.se,  immediately,  but  only  so  far  as  we  have  the 
common  liabilities  of  the  whole  race  under  the  divine  govern- 
ment. In  consequence  of  this,  all  men  come  into  the  world 
alienated  from  God,  propense  to  sin,  and  exposed  or  liable  to 
eternal  death  unless  grace  interpose. 

Original  Sin  means  in  theology  just  one  thing:  not,  the  first 
sin  of  Adam ;  not,  the  first  sin  of  each  man ;  but — the  general 
condition  of  all- the  members  of  the  race  by  birth,  before  actual 
transgression,  into  which  they  are  brought  in  consequence  of 
the  fall  of  Adam,  the  head  of  the  race.  And  the  great  questions 
in  the  debate  are,  whether  this  general  condition  is  in  some  true 
and  proper  sense  sinful,  whether  there  is  an  imputation  of  a  sin- 
fulness  which  justly  calls  forth  God's  moral  displeasure,  and 
whether  such  imputation  is  of -what  truly  belongs  to  mankind 
in  its  connection  with  its  natural  and-federal  head. 

§  1.   General  Statements. 

I. — No  one  can  apprehend  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  nor 
the  doctrine  of  redemption,  who  insists  that  the  whole  moral  gov- 
ernment of  God  has  respect  only  to  individual  desert,  in  the  way 
of  personal  obedience  and  disobedience,  who  does  not  allow  that 
the  moral  government  of  God,  as  moral,  has  a  wider  scope  and 
larger  relations,  so  that  God  may  dispense  suffering  and  happi- 
ness on  other  grounds  (in  his  all-wise  and  inscrutable  providence) 
than  that  of  personal  merit  and  demerit.  The  dilemma  here  is : 
the  facts  connected  with  native  depravity  and  with  the  redemp- 
tion through  Christ  either  belong  to  the  moral  government  of 
God,  or  not.  If  they  do,  then  that  government  has  to  do  with 
other  considerations  than  those  of  personal  merit  and  demerit 
(since  our  disabilities  in  consequence  of  sin  and  the  grace  offered 
in  Christ  are  not  in  any  sense  the  result  of  our  personal  choice, 
though  we  do  choose  in  our  relations  to  both).  If  they  do  not 
belong  to  the  moral  government  of  God,  where  shall  we  assign 
them?  To  the  physical?  That  certainly  cannot  be.  To  the 
divine  sovereignty?  But  that  does  not  relieve  any  difficulty; 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  287 

for  the  question  still  remains,  Is  that  sovereignty,  as  thus  exer- 
cised, just  or  unjust?  We  must  take  one  or  the  other  of  these. 
The  whole  (of  sin  and  grace)  is  a  mystery  of  sovereignty — of  mere 
omnipotence,  or  a  proceeding  of  moral  sovereignty.  The  ques- 
tion will  arise  with  respect  to  grace  as  well  as  to  sin :  How  can 
the  theory  that  all  moral  government  has  respect  only  to  the 
merit  or  demerit  of  personal  acts,  be  applied  to  our  justification? 
If  all  sin  is  in  sinning  with  a  personal  desert  of  Everlasting 
death,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  all  holiness  must  consist  in  a  holy 
choice  with  personal  merit  of  eternal  life. 

We  say  then,  generally,  that  all  definitions  of  sin  which  mean  a 
sin  are  irrelevant  here.  Edwards,  vol.  ii.,  p.  309,  says:  "Original  sin 
....  the  innate  sinful  depravity  of  the  heart"  includes  not  only 
"the  depravity  of  nature,  but  the  imputation  of  Adam's  first  sin ;  or 
in  other  words  the  liableness  or  exposedness  of  Adam's  posterity, 
in  the  divine  judgment,  to  partake  of  the  punishment  of  that 
sin."  This  doctrine  of  original  sin  in  this  general  shape  has 
come  down  from  the  time  of  Augustine,  through  all  the  Re- 
formed confessions,  Lnd  is  recognized  by  most  of  the  orthodox 
schools.  Historically,  the  following  points  have  always  been 
agreed  upon: 

1.  That  the  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  original  sin 
and  actual  transgression. 

2.  That  original  sin  belongs  to  a  man  as  a  member  of  the 
race,  and  as  the  result  of  Adam's  transgression. 

3.  That  it  involves,  or  is,  the  corruption  of  the  whole  race, 
in  its  moral  bias. 

4.  That  it  exists  in  the  race  in  its  moral  relations  to  God,  not 
as  a  mere  physical  state,  nor  as  a  matter  of  divine  sovereignty 
excluding  God's  moral  government  or  outside  of  the  same,  but 
that  it  has  to  do  with  the  same  moral  relations  in  which  re- 
demption is  to  be  viewed.     The  later  German  divines,  too,  react- 
ing from  Rationalism,  are  all  on  this  general  ground :  Neander, 
Tholuck,  Muller,  Ebrard,  Thomasius,  Twesten,  Dorner,  etc. 

NOTE.— As  to  whether  there  is  a  valid  distinction  between  original  sin  and 
actual  transgression.  The  simple  facts  of  the  case  are  to  be  regarded:  (1)  Native 
depravity  exists:  an  immanent  preference  (not  known  to  be  the  result  of  a  de- 


288  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

liberate  choice,  but  which  manifests  itself  as  a  choice)  beyond  and  before  con- 
scious  memory;  which  we  associate  with,  and  which  involves,  a  sense  of  yuilt} 
(2)  Which  we  connect  with  our  condition  as  members  of  a  sinful  race,  involving 
us  in  the  common  evils  of  the  race ;  (3)  Which  the  Scriptures  assert  to  be  the  con- 
sequence of  the  Adamic  transgression. 

1 1. — Original  sin  is  a  doctrine  not,  primarily,  respecting  indi- 
viduals, in  their  individual  capacity  and  responsibilities,  in  their 
separate  personalities;  but  it  is  a  doctrine  respecting  what  is 
common  to  all  men, — their  common  condition  and  needs, — what 
belongs  to  them  as  members  of  the  human  race.  It  has  its  bear- 
ings on  them  as  individuals,  but  it  has  not  specific  reference  to 
this, — -just  as  in  the  atonement  of  Christ,  redemption  is  not 
provided,  primarily,  for  this  or  that  man,  but  for  the  whole 
human  race.  The  Scholastic  maxim  has  its  abiding  truth:  "In 
Adam  the  person  corrupted  the  nature:  in  us,  the  nature  cor- 
rupts the  person." 

III. — In  this  doctrine  it  is  not  pretended,  nor  is  it  necessary 
to  give  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  moral  evil.  This  is  not  what 
we  are  after  in  discussing  the  doctrine.  The  object  of  the  doc- 
trine as  a  doctrine  is  simply  to  give  the  general  facts  of  the  case 
on  the  ground  of  which  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  moral  evil 
is  to  be  attempted.  And  as  to  the  solution  itself  the  different 
ways  of  viewing  human  sinful  ness  do  not  affect  it  much.  It  is 
no  more  easy  to  solve  it  in  connection  with  the  theory  of  "  phy- 
sical constitution,"  etc.,  than  with  the  common  orthodox  view. 
The  constitution  is  still  to  be  referred  back  to  God.  If  we  say, 
there  is  no  bias  to  sin,  but  only  a  world  of  temptation  in  which 
sin  is  certain  for  all,  yet  we  must  say  again,  God  made  the  world 
and  man.1 

IV. — In  the  matter  of  original  sin  there  are  three  problems 
around  whose  solution  the  difficulty  turns — 

1.  The  relation  of  the  race  to  the  individual — and  of  the  in- 
dividual to  the  race:  the  old  question  of  the  genus  and  indi- 
vidual, running  back  into  the  Realism  and  Nominalism  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

2.  The  relation  of  our  native  dispositions  to  their  rnanifesta- 

1  The  theory  of  pre-existence  only  drives  the  solution  back  a  little  further. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  289 

tions:  whether  we  can  reason  back  from  the  manifestation  to 
what  is  in  the  constitution ;  whether  what  is  expressed  in  the 
manifestation  can  be  ascribed  to  the  constitution ;  whether  the 
phenomena  reveal  the  substance. 

3.  The  relation  of  the  moral  government  of  God,  in  its  gen- 
eral aims  and  ends,  to  that  government  as  exercised  over  indi- 
viduals: whether  the  moral  government  is  only  for  individuals 
or  is  also  for  the  race. 

V. — And  as  there  are  three  problems,  so  there  are  three 
terms  in  the  discussion  for  which  definitions  are  sought:  sin, 
guilt,  and  punishment.  Can  these  be  attributed,  in  any  valid 
sense,  to  God's  moral  government  of  men  as  men,  in  distinction 
from  the  government  of  each  individual?  Do  they  have  to  do 
with  the  native  dispositions  of  men  ?  Does  the  whole  of  what 
is  moral,  in  short,  lie  in  personal  choice  and  personal  desert  (ot 
happiness  or  of  misery)?  If  it  does,  we  have  only  an  ethical, 
moral  system  as  the  sum  and  substance  of  Christian  theology. 

VI. — In  contrast  with  this  mode  of  viewing  man,  as  simply 
an  individual  standing  for  himself,  it  seems  plain  from  Scripture 
that  he  is  there  viewed  (not  excluding  his  individual  responsi- 
bilities and  deserts)  under  two  prime  relations,  wider  than  this 
( — in  respect  to  God's  moral  government, — in  respect  to  both 
sin  and  holiness):  under  the  relation  to  Adam  as  the  head  of 
our  fallen  humanity  and  the  relation  to  Christ  as  the  head 
of  our  renewed  humanity.  The  headship  of  Adam  and  the 
headship  of  Christ  are  the  two  grand  foci  of  the  Scriptural  sys- 
tem respecting  man.  Man's  personal  responsibilities,  liabilities, 
and  deserts  are  brought  under,  included  within,  subordinated 
to,  or  grow  out  of,  these  more  general  relations  in  which  he 
stands. 

Kunning  through  the  Scripture,  there  are  two  relations  of 
man,  under  the  aspects  both  of  sin  and  of  redemption :  one,  gen- 
eral; another,  individual.  There  is  the  sin  of  the  race — a  com- 
munity in  sin ;  the  sin  of  each  individual — his  own  personal  acts 
and  responsibility.  There  is  grace  for  all  in  Christ,  while  the 
faith  and  obedience  of  each  are  also  required.  We  fail  of  the 
Scriptural  view  when  we  do  not  emphasize  both.  If  all  is  in- 


290  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

dividualized,  we  make  mere  ethics:  if  all  is  generalized,  we 
make  necessary  sin,  and  redemption  without  personal  holiness. 
Nor  can  we  draw  the  line  in  experience  and  consciousness  be- 
tween the  two.  The  great  fact  at  the  basis  of  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin  is  that  of  the  moral- unity  of  the  human  race:  man 
is  one  in  the  estate  of  sin  and  misery:  there  is  a  common  guilt 
and  ruin  (as  well  as  individual  sin): — the  great  fact  at  the  basis 
of  the  new  life  is  that  of  a  common  redemption  provided  for  all. 

This  same  'point  is  further  illustrated  by  the  general  state- 
ment that  the  Scriptural  representation  makes  the  headship  of 
Adam  on  the  one  hand  and  the  headship  of  Christ  on  the  other 
to  be  the  central  points  in  respect  to  the  ruin  on  the  one  side, 
and  the  recovery  on  the  other,  of  the  whole  family  of  man. 
Again, — not  without  the  personal  intervention  and  compliance 
of  each  individual — his  own  participation — in  the  sin  and  in  the 
redemption.  Putting  these  two  over  against  each  other  so  prom 
inently:  the  first  and  second  Adam — death  from  the  one,  life 
from  and  in  the  other  only:  this  is  the  great  leading  grouping 
of  the  whole  human  race,  in  respect  to  its  ultimate  destiny,  in 
the  sacred  Scriptures.  This  is  the  Biblical  view.  The  notion 
of  the  Covenants  may  be  in  form  a  fiction,  but  it  is  in  fact  a 
fact.  It  is  partly  false  and  wholly  true.  This  is  the  basis  of 
the  whole  history,  of  the  Bible, — of  its  facts,  as  historic,  realized 
in  history.  This  makes  the  Scriptural  view  entirely  different 
from  any  merely  moral  view  of  the  human  race  and  of  human 
destiny.  Each  individual  of  the  race  is  represented  as  under 
the  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  points  of  view,  either  as 
connected  with  a  race  that  fell  in  Adam,  or  with  that  race 
as  redeemed  by  Christ. 

Another  Statement.  There  are  two  points  of  view  about  man 
in  the  Scripture,  on  the  face  of  it:  one  that  of  personal  desert 
and  liabilities,  another,  that  of  his  condition  as  man,  as  a  member 
of  the  race,  in  his  social  liabilities,  in  his  relations  to  the  whole 
government  of  God.  To  the  former,  belong  the  practical,  the 
personal,  the  ground  of  personal  adjudication,  the  sphere  of  act- 
ual transgression:  to  the  latter,  viz.,  man  in  his  general  relations 
and  liabilities,  belong  all  facts  and  statements  connected  with 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  291 

both  the  faU  and  redemption.  Neither  of  these  is  primarily  foi 
each  man  personally,  but  each  has  respect  to  the  race  as  a  whole, 
to  man  as  man,  though  both  may  be  in  and  for  each  man  also. 

There  is  a  sinful  condition  of  the  race  as  such,  introduced  by 
the  fall :  over  against  this  God  has  set  a  provision  of  redemption, 
for  the  whole  race,  covering  the  whole  sphere  of  sin  and  its  con- 
sequences. (Limited  Atonement,  Particular  Redemption  ought 
to  be  held  only  by  those  who  say,  all  sin  consists  in  winning.) 
These  are  the  two  grand  primary  aspects  under  which  the  Bible 
views  man.  Now  the  sphere  of  personal  liability  and  desert 
comes  in  under  these  conditions  and  arrangements — of  the 
common  sin  and  the  common  redemption.  That  sin  in  each 
shows  itself  as  preference  (consent):  then  come  his  personal 
liabilities  and  desert,  and  not  till  then.  To  him,  in  this  state, 
salvation,  grace  through  Christ  provided  for  all,  is  offered:  which 
he  may  accept  or  reject.  (This  is  to  all  to  whom  the  gospel  comes.) 
Sometimes  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  is  represented  as  implying 
that  each  individual  is  personally  worthy  of  eternal  damnation 
for  Adam's  sin.  This  is  not  true.  The  conditions  of  judgment 
as  to  personal  desert  do  not  exist  until  personal  transgression 
has  occurred. 

§  2.  The  Fads  of  the  Case,  in  respect  to  Original  Sin,  as  given 
in  Scripture. 

We  have  thus  far  reached  a  native  depravity,  common  to  all 
men,  the  ground  and  source  of  actual  transgression.  The  doc- 
trine of  original  sin  carries  us  back  one  step  further,  viz.,  to  the 
origin  of  this  depraved  condition;  original  sin  refers  specifically 
to  that.  The  inquiry  is,  What  is  the  connection  of  the  depravity 
of  each  individual  with  the  sinfulness  of  others:  what  is  the 
origin  of  our  native  depravity?  We  speak  here  of  the  facts 
of  the  case  as  given  in  Scripture. 

I. — The  passages  already  adduced  to  prove  native  depravity 
imply  that  this  depravity  is  hereditary:  Ps.  li.  5;  John  iii.  6; 
Rom.  viii.  7;  Eph.  ii.  3;  Job  xv.  14.  Also,  Luke  i.  35,  the  An- 
nunciation of  Christ's  supernatural  conception  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  the  result,  Christ's  holiness 


292  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

II. — The  Scriptures  view  the  race  of  man  as  one,  descending 
from  Adam,  having  a  physical  and  moral  unity.  This  position 
is  at  the  foundation  of  the  Scriptural  doctrines  of  sin  and  of 
redemption.1  Acts  xvii.  26;  Gen.  i.  26,  28;  The  Genealogies 
of  the  Old  Testament:  Gen.  v.,  before  the  flood;  Gen.  x.,  after  the 
flood;  Matt.  xix.  4;  1  Cor.  xv.  45;  2  Cor.  xi.  3;  1  Tim.  ii.  14; 
Rom.  v.  12-19. 

III. — The  Scriptures  further  declare  that  all  men  are  under 
sin  and  exposed  to  its  just  consequences.  Rom.  iii.  9;  iii.  19, 
"  that  all  the  world  may  become  "  v-jtoSixoS  TV>  $e<a  subject  to  the 
charge  of  sin  before,  or  by,  God ;  Gal.  iii.  2,  3.  These  passages 
do  not  show  the  connection  with  Adam,  but  the  state  of  man  as 
depraved  and  subject  to  the  divine  judgment. 

IV. — The  Scripture  then  carries  us  one  step  further.  In 
Horn.  v.  12-19,  it  is  distinctly  declared  that  Adam's  transgres- 
sion is  the  source  and  root  of  this  guilty,  depraved  condition. 
Whether  with  or  without  our  consent,  is  not  now  the  question. 
We  have  here  to  consider  simply  the  matter  of  fact  that  this 
passage  decides  at  least  this  much:  that  the  hereditary  depravity, 
the  sinful,  guilty  condition  of  the  race,  is  to  be  traced  directly 
to  Adam,  the  head  of  the  race,  as  its  ground  and  source. 

(a.)  This  position  does  not  rest  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
obscure  clause  kq>  <»  in  verse  12,  for  it  is  much  more  explicitly 
asserted  in  the  following  verses:  15,  "if  through  the  offence  of 
one  [the]  many  were  dead"  [or,  died];  16,  "the  judgment  is  by 
[of]  one  unto  condemnation;"  17,  "by  one  man's  offence  death 
reigned  by  [the]  one;"  18,  "through  the  offence  of  one  [one  of- 
fence] [the]  judgment  came  upon  all  men  unto  condemnation;" 
19,  "through  one  man's  disobedience  [the]  many  were  made 
sinners."  Apart  from  verse  12,  these  assertions  establish  the 
fact  that  Adam's  transgression  was  the  judicial. ground  of  bring- 
ing all  men  into  condemnation.  Whatever  else  the  passage 
does  or  does  not  prove,  it  undoubtedly  represents  a  moral  judg- 
ment on  the  basis  of  Adam's  offence  on  the  one  hand  and  of 

1  Science  just  at  present,  inclines  to  favor  the  position  that  mankind  is  from 
one  pair.  The  unity  of  the  race  might  be  argued  from  the  powerful  social  in- 
stinct,  the  lore  of  the  race,  which  is  so  deeply  implanted  in  ua. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  293 

Christ's  obedience  on  the  other,  as  the  ground  of  the  death  of 
all  and  of  the  eternal  life  which  is  offered  to  all.  It  is  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  position  that  all  of  God's  moral  dealings 
have  respect  ultimately  and  solely  to  individual  merit  and  de- 
merit. It  is  utterly  impossible  to  interpret  this  passage  as  teach- 
ing or  implying  a  merely  physical  relationship.  It  sets  forth  a 
moral  judgment.  (At  the  same  time  this  passage  does  not  teach 
the  way  in  which  this  was  done;  through  what  intermediate 
stages  it  is  carried  out  and  takes  effect;  through  what  personal 
agency  of  each  individual  the  moral  judgment  is  consummated ; 
and  there  is  room  left  for  further  statements.  The  passage  does 
not  assert,  nor  necessarily  involve,  the  position  taken  in  the  ex- 
treme immediate  imputation  theory,  viz.,  that  the  sin  of  Adam 
is  the  judicial  ground  of  making  us  sinful,  or  that  our  native  deprav- 
ity is  the  punishment  of  Adam's  sin.)  The  object  of  the  passage, 
and  particularly  of  the  12th  verse,  is  undoubtedly  the  contrast 
between  the  ruin  through  Adam  and  the  recovery  through  Christ. 
As  really  as  Christ  is  the  ground — and  the  moral  ground — of  our 
restitution — and  of  our  moral  restitution,  so  really  is  Adam  of 
our  ruined  condition.  The  headship  of  the  two  is  explicit  and 
contrasted.  Not  that  they  are  in  all  particulars  the  same ;  es- 
pecially are  they  different  in  that  the  restoration  is  not  merely 
coincident  with  the  ruin,  but  ampler, — a  superabundance  of 
blessings  is  given  in  Christ.1 

(&.)  As  to  the  12th  verse.  Some  would  read:  "and  so  death 
passed  upon  all  men  because,  all  have  sinned"  [or  did  sin].  That 
is,  the  reason  that  death  passed  upon  all  men  is  that  all  have 
sinned:  death  (which  on  this  understanding  must  be  eternal 
death)  is  the  condemnation  for  sin,  and  therefore  there  is  no 
death  as  penalty  where  there  is  not  personal  sin.  (This  view 
does  not  say:  personal  death  and  the  ground  in  each  person  of 
personal  sin  have  passed  together  unto  all:  death  and  corrup- 
tion are  interlinked;  that  might  deserve  some  careful  considera- 

1  As  men  sometimes  erect  a  grander  edifice  over  the  ruins  of  one  destroyed, 
so,  it  might  be  said,  God  has  done  with  the  temple  of  humanity.  (See  John  Howe's 
Living  Temple.)  Here,  in  Rom.  v.,  is  the  best  intimation  which  has  ever  been 
given  of  the  final  theodicy,  and  given  by  the  divine  oracle,  not  by  human 
speculation. 


294  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

tion.)  The  advocates  of  this  rendering  hesitate  or  refuse  to 
admit  that  "  death  "  here  includes  temporal  death  (which  it  cer- 
tainly does) ;  because  then  it  is  necessary  to  say,  that  all  before 
they  die  have  actually,  personally,  sinned,  and  that  involves  the 
assertion  of  a  personal  transgression  in  the  case  of  every  infant 
as  the  ground  or  reason  for  its  natural  death,  and  also  perhaps 
of  its  final  condemnation.  And  in  saying  that  the  death  is 
eternal  death  there  is  an  equal  difficulty  in  the  implication  that 
the  youngest  babes  have  already  so  violated  the  law  in  personal 
transgression  as  to  be  worthy  of  eternal  death.  But  even  if  the 
force  of  this  12th  verse  could  be  annulled  by  translating  £$>  w 
"  because,"  and  making  "sinned  "  refer  to  personal  transgression 
exclusively,  yet  the  other  passages  remain,  asserting  unmistak- 
ably that  the  judgment  is  "  of  one  unto  condemnation." 

In  our  view,  the  best  interpretation  of  the  12th  verse  is  that 
suggested  by  Tholuck  and  favored  by  other  exegetes: — "and  so 
death  passed  unto  all  men  as  is  manifest  in  this  that  all  have  l 
sinned."  The  sense  of  the  verse  is  this:  Sin  and  death  came  into 
the  world  by  Adam:  from  him  death  has  passed  as  a  common 
lot  upon  all,  as  is  seen  in  this,  or  as  is  proved  by  this,  that  all 
have  sinned — who  could  sin.  £g>  &  explains  what  goes  before, 
"so  far  as  all  have  sinned,"^,  e.,  death  has  passed  to  all  from 
Adam,  only  so  far  as  sin  is  found  in  all:  inasmuch  as  it  is  found 
in  all,  the  death  is  universal. 

•Another  statement  as  to  the  interpretation  of  Rom.  v.  12. 
kg>  q5  should  be  rendered:  "under  which  relation."  "And  so 
death  passed  upon  all  men,"  under  which  relation,  i.  e.,  of  death 
having  passed  upon  them,  all  have  sinned.  It  is  a  clause  ap- 
pended to  prove  and  substantiate  the  foregoing. 

But  whether  we  can  reach  a  satisfactory  interpretation  of 
verse  12  or  not,  the  meaning  of  the  whole  passage,  Rom.  v.  12-19, 
is  plain:  it  is  that  through  one  man  sin  and  death  have  come 
upon  all,  and  that  there  is  a  divine  judgment  in  this.  The  ulti- 
mate ground  of  the  sin  and  death  of  all  is  as  much  in  Adam,  as  the 
ultimate  ground  of  the  life  for  all  is  in  Christ.3 

1  [The  author  invariably  refuses  to  accept  the  strict  force  of  the  aorist  both  here 
and  in  the  important  passage,  2  Cor.  v.  14.] 

»  [Dorner,  Glaubensl.  §  79,  Eng.  trans.,  iii.  15,  says :  "  The  result,  therefore,  of 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  295 

Y. — That  there  is  such  a  sinful  condemned  condition  of  the 
race  is  still  further  proved  on  Scriptural  grounds  from  the  pro- 
visions for  redemption  and  from  the  need  of  regeneration.  These 
concern  the  whole  human  race. 

1.  As  to  the  provision  for  redemption.     Eom.  v.  18,  showing 
that  so  far  as  death  reigns,  so  far  redemption  is  provided;  2  Cor. 
v.  14,  15,  as  far  as  spiritual  death1  even  reigns,  so  far  the  re- 
demption is  provided;  Heb.  ii.  9;  2  Cor.  v.  19.     The  argument 
here  is  simple.     The  redemption  of  Christ  is  a  redemption  from 
Sin:  if  it  is  for  all,  then  all  are  in  a  state  to  need  it.     The  atone- 
ment is  for  all  mankind,  is  for  children  as  a  part  thereof:  else 
there  are  two  kinds  of  atonement,  one  for  moral  depravity,  and 
the  other  for  physical. 

2.  So  of  regeneration.     Take  only  a  single  passage.     John 
iii.  5,  6  shows  that  all  that  are  born  of  the  flesh  need  the  regen- 
eration of  the  Spirit;  else  they  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Hence  all  as  born  of  the  flesh  are  in  a  sinful  condition;  for  re- 
generation is  a  spiritual  change.     Else  thei'e  are  two  kinds  of 
regeneration.    Either  there  is  moral  ruin,  needing  a  moral  remedy, 
or  else  physical  needing  only  physical  remedy.     What  is  the 
meaning,  too,  of  baptism  as  applied  to  children,  if  it  is  not  sig- 
nificant of  the  washing  of  regeneration?     (It  is  no  answer  to 
cite  the  case  of  Christ's  baptism,  for  that  is  always  understood 
as  meaning  something  different.)     What  things  are  principally 
asked  for  in  prayers  for  infant  children  ?     And  as  to  the  hope 
of  the  salvation  of  children  dying  in  infancy:  which  is  the  best 
system,  one  which  is  able  to  say  outright,  Christ  died  for  them, 
they  may  be  the  subjects  of  renewing  grace,  or  one  which  is 
obliged  to  hesitate  and  falter  on  this  point  ?     Otherwise,  strictly 
taken,  infants  are  not  saved  through  the  atonement  of  Christ 
and  the  renewal  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

VI. — This  Scriptural  argument  is  confirmed  by  Scriptural 

the  Biblical  teaching  i&  that  all  men,  from  the  days  of  Adam  on,  stand  in  need  of 
redemption  and  that  a  divine  judgment  of  reprobation  rests  upon  them  as  sinners, 
from  which  Christ  alone  can  set  them  free.  A  more  intimate  explanation  of  the 
way  and  manner  in  which  Adam  became  a  cause  of  the  sinfulness  of  his  posterity, 
is  given  neither  by  Paul  nor  John."] 

J["Then  were  all  dead"  is  the  rendering  preferred  by  the  author.] 


29  G  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

facts  and  facts  of  history  in  respect  to  God's  moral  government 
here.  Under  the  moral  government  of  God,  one  man  may  justly 
suffer  on  account  of  the  sins  of  another.  An  organic  relation 
of  men  is  regarded  in  the  great  judgments  of  God  in  history: 
they  are  in  proportion  to  the  social  position  of  offenders.  There 
is  evil  which  comes  upon  individuals,  not  as  punishment  for 
their  personal  sins,  but  still  as  suffering  which  comes  under  a 
moral  government.1  The  church  as  a  whole  has  held  either 
natural  or  spiritual  death,  or  both,  to  be  the  just  consequences 
of  Adam's  sin.  The  atonement,  at  the  very  least,  is  suffering 
under  a  moral  government  for  moral  ends,  by  an  innocent  person 
instead  of  by  the  guilty;  a  substitution;  not  indeed  the  suffering 
of  the  penalty  of  the  law  for  personal  transgression,  but  still,  in 
the  lowest  view,  a  suffering  justly  under  the  law  for  the  sake 
of  redemption.  We  have  explicit  assertions  of  God's  dealing 
with  men  morally  in  view  of  their  connections  in  the  family 
order;  the  descendants  of  Canaan  suffered  under  the  curse 
pronounced  upon  their  forefather;  Reuben's  sin  affected  his 
tribe ;  David's  misdeeds  were  visited  on  the  nation ;  Gehazi's 
offence  was  punished  in  his  offspring  as  well  as  in  his  person, 
2  Kings  v.  27;  the  sin  of  Jeroboam  involved  the  ten  tribes 
in  its  penal  consequences;  the  result  of  the  imprecation,  "His 
blood  be  on  us  and  on  our  children,"  who  can  measure  ?  What 
is  asserted  in  the  second  commandment  of  the  law,  is  reas- 
serted by  the  prophets.  Jer.  xxxii.  18,  "Thou  showest  loving- 
kindness  unto  thousands,  and  recompensest  the  iniquity  of  the 
fathers  into  the  bosom  of  their  children  after  them." 

It  may  be  said,  all  these  are  merely  "  consequences  "  of  family 
or  tribal  or  national  or  race  relations, — "  evil  becomes  cosmical 
by  reason  of  fastening  on  relations  which  were  originally 

»Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor:  "The  connection  with  Adam  is  stated  in  such  a  way,  by 
God's  sovereign  constitution,  that  the  sin  and  just  (not  actual)  condemnation  of  all 
men  to  bear  its  penalty  must  be  inferred  from  their  connection  with  Adam  as  his 
descendants."  But  there  is  no  relief  in  ascribing  the  evil  which  comes  upon  men 
in  their  race  relations  to  sovereignty  alone,  for  that  leaves  the  difficulty  the  same, 
and  adds  the  element  of  arbitrariness.  Moreover  it  removes  from  the  moral  gov- 
ernment of  God  the  most  important  transactions  affecting  that  government. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.          297 

adapted  to  making  good  cosmical :  "  but  then  God's  plan  must  be 
in  the  consequences; — a  plan  administered  by  a  Moral  Being, 
over  moral  beings,  according  to  moral  considerations,  and  for 
moral  ends:  and  if  that  be  fully  taken  into  view,  the  dispute  as 
to  "consequences"  or  punishment  becomes  a  merely  verbal  one. 

§  3.  The  Fads  of  the  Case  as  to  Original  Sin,  as  argued  from 
Experience,  and  on  other  than  Scriptural  Grounds. 

I. — The  testimony  of  many  of  the  wisest  and  profoundest 
philosophers  is  entirely  accordant  with,  and  leads  to,  the  Script- 
ural view.  Socrates  speaks  of  a  general  corruption  of  the  best 
of  nations,  and  calls  it  a  disease  for  which  no  human  art  had  found 
a  remedy.  Plato  ascribes  to  children  an  inward  pravity  even  of 
nature,  for,  he  says,  if  they  learned  evil  by  example  as  birds  learn 
to  sing,  then  it  would  only  be  necessary  to  seclude  them  in  order 
to  make  them  good.  Xen.  Cyrop.,  vi.  1,  §  4:  "It  is  clear  that  I 
have  two  souls;  for  surely  if  it  were  one,  it  would  not  be  good 
and  bad  at  the  same  time,  and  inclined  to  good  deeds  and  evil 
too,  and  willing  at  one  time  to  do  certain  things  and  not  to  do 
them.  But  plainly  there  are  two  souls,  and  when  the  good  one 
gets  the  upper  hand,  it  does  right,  and  when  the  evil,  it  enter? 
on  wicked  courses."  Sophocles,  Antigone,1  583  seq.,  606  seq. : 

"I  see  the  ancient  miseries  of  thy  race, 
0  Labdacus,  arising  from  the  dead 
With  fresh  despair:  nor  sires  from  sons  efface 
The  curse  some  angry  Power  hath  riveted 
Forever  on  thy  destined  line." 

Of  Jove:— 

"  Spurning  the  power  of  age,  enthroned  in  might 
Thou  dwell'st  mid  heaven's  broad  light. 
This  was,  in  ages  past,  thy  firm  decree, 
Is  now,  and  shall,  forever,  be: 
That  none  of  mortal  race,  on  earth,  shall  know 
A  life  of  joy  serene,  a  course  unmarked  by  woe.'; 

Seneca,   Ep.   52,  ad  Lucilium:   "What  is  it,  Lucilius,  that 
when  we  set  ourselves  in  one  way  draws  us  in  another;  and 
'  Prof.  W.  S.  Tyler,  Bibl.  Sacr.,  Jan.  '61,  p.  58  seq. 


298  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

when  we  desire  to  avoid  any  course  drives  us  into  it  ?  " 

"  By  what  means  or  when  shall  we  be  drawn  away  from  this 
folly?  No  man  is  able  to  emerge  from  it  by  his  own  energy. 
Another  must  stretch  forth  his  hand  and  lead  us  out."  Cicero, 
Tusc.  iii.  1,  2:  "  Sunt  enim  iugeniis  nostris  semina  innata  virtu- 
turn;  quae  si  adolescere  liceret,  ipsa  nos  ad  beatam  vitam  natura 
perduceret.  Nunc  autem,  simul  atque  editi  in  lucem  et  suscepti 
sumus,  in  omni  continuo  pravitate,  et  in  sum  ma  opinionum  per- 
versitate  versamur."  Cicero  in  Hortensius,1  speaks  of  sages, 
"qui  nos  ob  aliqua  scelera  suscepta  in  vita  superiore,  poenarurn 
luendarum  causa  natos  esse  dixerunt."  "These  men,"  continues 
Cicero,  "seem  to  have  had  some  proper  perception  (aliquid  vidisse 
videantur);  and  that  may  be  true  which  we  find  in  Aristotle,2  that 
we  are  punished  like  those  of  yore,  who  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Etruscan  robbers,  and  were  slain  with  elaborate  cruelty;  their 
live  bodies  being  tightly  bound  with  corpses  placed  exactly 
opposite :  thus  are  our  souls  linked  with  our  bodies  as  the  living 
in  conjunction  with  the  dead."  With  these  agree  the  philoso- 
phers of  modern  times.  Leibnitz;  Kant,  rationalist  as  he  was, 
speaks  of  the  radical  evil  of  human  nature;  Hegel,  pantheist  as 
he  was,  declares  that  original  sin  is  the  nature  of  every  man; 
every  man  begins  with  it. 

In  point  of  fact,  the  whole  of  logical  and  even  of  pantheistic 
infidelity  confesses  all  that  makes  up  the  substance  of  the  ortho- 
dox doctrine  of  original  sin:  alienation  from  God,  hereditary 
depravity,  constant  sinning  by  all  from  their  youth  up: — only 
they  ascribe  to  it  a  simple  physical  character,  denying  it  to  be 
moral;  they  make  it  a  necessity,  and  so  do  not  lessen  its  evil, 
while  they  thereby  stifle  the  sense  of  guilt,  and  deny  the  neces 
sity  of  redemption.3 

1  There  are  only  fragments  of  this  Hortensius.     It  helped  to  lead  Augustine 
to  faith. 

2  Brandis  says,  "Aristotle  would  have  believed  in  original  sin."     (See  Peip, 
Trinita't,  in  Herzog's  Encycl.) 

3  Coleridge,  Lit.  Remains,  3,  324:  "One  of  the  main  ends  and  results  o* 
the  doctrine  of  original    sin  is  to  silence  and   confute   the   blasphemy  that 
makes  God  the  author  of  sin,  without  avoiding  it  by  flying  to  the  almost 
equal  blasphemy  against  the  conscience,  that  sin  in  the  sense  of  guilt  does 
not  exist.'* 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  299 

II. — The  hereditary  character  of  the  depravity  of  mankind 
is  also  confirmed  by  the  analogies  recognized  by  science  and 
philosophy.  The  human  race  is  descended  from  one  pair.  The 
descent  is  by  propagation,  under  the  law  that  like  begets  like. 
The  law  of  propagation  in  the  animal  kingdom  carries  down  all 
the  peculiarities  of  the  animal,  the  animal  instincts,  the  animal 
soul.  The  same  law  in  the  human  race  brings  down  national 
traits,  family  traits,  intellectual  peculiarities,  strength  or  weak- 
ness of  the  will,  moral  traits,  special  moral  peculiarities,  pride, 
envy,  jealousy,  revenge.  That  is,  this  law  of  propagation  car- 
ries with  it  the  special  peculiarities  of  all  the  faculties  of  the 
soul,  and  therefore  it  carries  the  soul  also ;  which  is  also  accord- 
ing to  the  analogy  of  the  animal  kingdom.  Besides  these,  it 
carries  with  it  what  belongs  to  the  race  as  a  whole,  its  general 
bias,  its  generic  moral  condition,  in  relation  to  moral  ends,  and 
this  generic  moral  condition  of  the  race  is — original  sin.  In  all 
other  spheres  the  law  of  propagation  carries  everything  else 
down l :  it  is  according  to  the  analogy  that  it  should  carry  the  gen- 
eric moral  bias  of  the  human  race. 

III. — The  experience  of  all  men,  so  far  as  it  can  reach  back, 
tends  to  confirm  the  doctrine  of  original  sin.  We  do  not  mean, 
of  course,  that  our  experience  traces  it  back  to  Adam,  but  it 
does  trace  back  the  sin  in  us  so  far  as  this:  that  we  cannot  de- 
tect its  origin  in  our  deliberate  choice.  No  human  being  is  able, 
in  experience,  to  go  back  to  the  time  when  he  first  decided  con- 
sciously and  deliberately  for  self  and  the  world  and  against  God. 
All  men,  when  moral  consciousness  is  awakened,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  find  themselves  in  the  state  of  immanent  preference  for 
some  lower  good,  and  this,- they  all  feel  and  know  to  be,  as  it 
exists  in  them,  a  sinful,  a  guilty  condition.  This  is  the  solemn 
and  mysterious  fact  about  our  experience  of  sin  and  our  knowl- 

1  [The  student  will  find  in  Dorner's  Glaubenslehre  some  profound  observations 
on  the  individuality  which  is  not  "carried  down,"  but  which  rather  perpetually 
springs  up  in  the  intellectual  and  moral  differentiation  of  the  race,  and  which 
Dr.  D.  is  perhaps  inclined  to  ascribe  to  that  very  special  divine  concursus  which 
attends  the  propagation  of  mankind.  There  is  evidence  that  the  author  would 
have  agreed  with  Dr.  D.,  here.] 


300  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

edge  of  its  real  nature.  It  is,  too,  our  own  sin,  our  own  guilt.1 
This  state  we  find  as  a  preference,  a  direction,  a  bias  of  the  will. 
We  may  speculate  about  the  time  when  we  first  came  into  this 
state,  but  we  cannot  reach  that  time  in  experience.  Our  sense 
of  personal  ill-desert  is  doubtless  connected  with,  based  upon, 
the  fact,  that  this  sinful  preference  is  felt  and  known  to  be  ours, 
approved  and  loved  by  us,  to  be  our  love,  our  choice.  But  the 
universality  of  such  a  sinful  preference,  beyond  the  sphere  even 
of  memory,  proves  that  it  has  its  ground  in  our  very  constitution. 

Another  form  of  statement. — This  state  in  which  we  are  born 
is  the  ground  of  our  first  moral  choice,  of  our  immanent  prefer- 
ence, so  that  the  latter  only  expresses  in  the  form  of  choice,  of 
preference,  what  was  before  in  this  state,  in  potentia.  And  this 
immanent  preference  was  before  any  present  memory  of  ours, 
so  that  we  find  ourselves  in  it — as  the  whole  bent  and  bias  of 
our  being — our  inmost,  profoundest  moral  reality.  And  for  this, 
when  the  light  of  the  law  comes,  we  feel  and  know  ourselves  to 
be  guilty  before  God :  it  is  a  state  justly  subjecting  us  to  the  di- 
vine judgments,  from  which  we  can  be  delivered  only  through 
regeneration  and  application  of  the  atoning  blood  of  Christ. 
And  this  is  the  common  state  of  men,  as  men,  as  descendants 
of  Adam,  under  the  divine  government.  Provided  these  points 
be  granted,  it  becomes  a  verbal  dispute  whether  we  call  this  state 
sinful  or  depraved,  or  not:  the  mere  term  is  not  worth  contend- 
ing for,  because  such  different  definitions  may  be  given  of  it. 

IV. — This  is  confirmed  by  Christian  experience  and  by  that 
which  usually  precedes  it:  by  the  light  which  comes  in  regener- 
ation, and  the  deeper  convictions  about  sin  through  which  souls 
are  led  to  their  conversion. 

Horn.  vii.  has  here  its  decisive  application.  A  depth  of  sin 
and  evil  is  disclosed  in  us,  a  greatness  of  guilt  and  ill-desert,  of 
which  we  before  had  no  conception,  vs.  23,  "  I  see  another  law 
in  my  members" — there  is  a  laiv  of  sin  in  us.  By  the  law  is  tho 
knowledge  of  sin.  vs.  7,  "  I  had  not  known  sin,  except  through 
the  law "  (yet,  the  sin  is  there).  This  is  the  voice  of  all  deep 

1  See  President  Marsh's  Essay  on  Sin, — on  some  aspects  of  sin  the  very  best 
Essay  that  we  know  of. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  301 

and  true  religious  experience.  Sin  is  profounder  in  us  than  any 
depth  to  which  we  have  reached  before  the  law  comes.  It  exists 
in  an  unconscious  state,  which  must  be  brought  out  into  the 
light  of  distinct  consciousness.  The  sinfulness  and  guilt  exists 
before  the  consciousness  of  it.  There  is  a  broad  distinction  be- 
tween guilt  and  the  sense  of  guilt.  Under  the  influence  of  God's 
Spirit,  we  become  sensible  of  a  pollution,  of  a  guilty,  most  sinful 
condition,  from  which  we  know  that  no  power  or  might  of  our 
own  can  deliver  us,  but  only  grace,  only  redeeming  grace,  only 
regeneration  applying  atoning  blood.  Just  here  experience  leaves 
us.  It  conducts  us  to  the  knowledge  of  a  deep-seated  depravity, 
which  we  know  not  that  we  originated,  but  which  is  ours  by 
preference:  it  expresses  itself  to  us  in  that  form.  For  that  we 
feel  guilty  and  condemned.  Reason  and  Scripture  together  then 
lead  us  one  step  further — to  this  point :  that  before  that  prefer- 
ence, there  was  a  bias,  a  propensity  thereto,  in  our  native  con- 
dition. Scripture  carries  us  back  one  step  further,  viz.,  to  the 
knowledge  that  the  human  race  have  come  into  this  condition 
in  consequence  of  the  apostasy  of  our  first  parents.1 

In  respect  to  the  problem  of  original  sin,  such  are  the  facts 
to  be  taken  into  the  account,  on  the  one  side :  they  may  be  thus 
summed  up:  In  consequence  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  the  head  and 
beginning  of  the  race,  all  men  come  into  the  world,  in  the  way 
of  natural  descent,  in  a  state  of  condemnation,  not  only  without 
holiness,  but  with  a  bias  or  propensity  to  sin,  subject  under  the 
divine  government  to  evils,  suffering  and  death,  from  which 
condition  they  can  only  be  delivered  through  the  redemption 
that  is  in  Christ.  And  this  native  state  becomes  their  irnma- 

1  Every  profounder  view  of  human  life,  human  history,  human  character,  ia 
compelled  to  go  behind  the  individual  action  to  its  causes  and  grounds:  ita 
grounds  in  human  nature  itself:  in  the  connection  of  each  man  with  all  others. 
We  cannot  escape  this  if  we  think  upon  it.  All  philosophy  leads  us  in  this  di- 
rection. Especially  does  the  whole  idea  and  system  of  redemption  lead  to  this: 
our  union  with  Christ,  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  ground  of  our  holy  acts 
and  of  our  redemption  is  not  in  our  own  wills.  The  greatest  minds,  the  best  and 
most  life-giving  theology  of  the  Christian  church,  the  deepest  Christian  experi- 
ence, lead  us  to  view  men  ultimately,  not  under  their  individual  aspects  and  re- 
sponsibilities, but  in  their  connection  with  the  whole  race  and  the  whole  system 
of  things. 


302  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

nent  preference,  as  soon  as  they  act  morally.     And  for  this  they 
know  themselves  to  be  guilty  and  condemned  before  God. 

Here  is  one  side  of  the  problem  to  be  solved:  before  considei 
ing  the  solutions  which  have  been  attempted,  we  must  bring 
into  view  other  Scriptural  and  moral  positions,  in  order  to  have 
before  us  all  the  elements  which  belong  to  the  question. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE   COUNTER-REPRESENTATION   AS   TO   SIN   AND   ITS   PUNISHMENT 
IN    SCRIPTURE    AND    EXPERIENCE. 

I. — In  Scripture.  Besides  those  descriptions  and  statements, 
hi  the  Scriptures,  about  sin  and  death,  in  which  they  are  viewed 
as  the  heritage  of  all  men,  there  is  another  class  of  passages  in 
which  sin  and  punishment  are  spoken  of  under  the  exclusively 
personal  aspect,  in  relation  to  the  words  and  deeds  of  each 
individual :  and  the  same  is  true  of  redemption  and  salvation. 

There  are  what  we  may  call  the  generic  and  the  personal 
classes  oi  passages,  specimens  of  which  may  be  compared : 

Generic: —  Personal: — 

Eyod.  xx.  5;  Num.  xiv.  18,  with       Ezek.  xviii.  20;  GaL  vi.  5. 

Rom.  v.  16,  "          Rom.  ii.  6. 

2  Cor.  v.  14,  »«          Deut.  xxx.  19;  Eom.  xiv.  12. 

Matt.  xv.  19,  "           1  John  ii.  16. 

Eom.  vii,  "          2  Cor.  v.  10. 

Holiness,  too,  is  from  the  Yet,  we  are  commanded  to 

power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  be  holy. 

waking  the  dead  to  life; 

Grace  is  of  God;  Yet,    commended   to    our 

choice. 

Yet  it  is  to  be  noted  that  while  the  Scriptures  thus  put  life 
in  our  election,  it  is  not  in  the  form  that  by  obedience  to  the 
law  any  human  being  can  be  saved.  It  is  only  in  the  form  of 
accepting  a  grace  offered.  They  thus  presuppose  the  state  of 
sin  and  the  need  of  redemption  in  every  human  being.  The) 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  303 

never  intimate,  they  deny,  that  any  member  of  the  race  cac 
obtain  eternal  life  by  the  deeds  of  the  law.  Rom.  iii.  20; 
Gal.  iii.  21 

II. — In  experience  as  interpreted  by  moral  philosophy. 

1.  It  is  said,  that  the  testimony  of  our  moral  nature  is,  that 
nothing  can  be  considered  sin  in  u§,  or  as  involving  guilt,  which 
is  not  our  own  free,  personal  choice.     Inherited  propensity,  bias 
to  the  world  and  self  are  conceded:  but  these  are  not  sinful,  and 
guilt  attaches  only  to  free  acts.      We  cannot  be  held  morally 
responsible    for   a   native    state    which   we    could    not    avoid. 
Conscience  condemns  us  only  for  our  own  deliberate  choices. 
Sin,  guilt,  and  punishment  can  relate  only  to  what  we  do,  inter- 
nally or  externally      All  else  belongs  not  to  the  sphere  of  moral 
responsibility,  but  to  the  course  of  nature  and  providence,  external 
to  the  proper  moral  government. 

2.  Still  further  it  is  said,  that  justice  and  right  demand  that 
God  should  not  bring  new-created  beings  into  a  state  where 
the  advantages  of  a  safe  issue  should  not  be  greater  than  the 
disadvantages.1 

Thus,  by  these  antagonisms  the  question  is  raised,  on  the 
three  points  already  stated:  (a.)  the  relation  of  the  ruined  con- 
dition of  the  race  to  our  personal  guilt;  (6.)  the  relation  of  our 
native  state  to  our  personal  acts;  (c.)  the  relation  of  God's  gov- 
ernment, so  far  as  it  respects  the  whole  race,  to  the  demands  of 
justice  in  respect  to  each  member  of  the  race. 

Hence  the  Problem^in  its  different  aspects,  is: 

1.  To  reconcile  the  fact  that  through  "the  one  man's  dis- 
obedience the  many  were  made  sinners  "  (Rom.  v.  19),  with  the 
position  that  all  men  become  sinners  by  their  own  act. 

2.  To  reconcile  the  fact  that  we  are  born  with  a  propensity 
to  sin,  with  the  position  that  guilt  implies  also  personal  ill-desert, 
and  that  all  such  ill-desert  is  of  our  own  origination. 

3.  To  reconcile  God's  justice  to  each  man,  as  seen  in  the  rev- 

1  This  is  one  of  the  positions  of  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  in  his  "Conflict  ol 
Ages."  He  grants  that  in  the  present  sphere  the  disadvantages  are  undoubtedly 
greater. 


304  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

elations  of  the  last  judgment,  with  the  fact  that  He  has  brought  all 
men — or  allowed  all  men  to  come — into  such  a  state  that  they 
will  certainly  sin  and  perish,  unless  arrested  by  grace. 

The  two  extreme  positions,  so  far  as  sin  is  concerned,  maj 
be  said  to  be  contained  in  the  two  formulas:  All  men  sinned  and 
fell  in  Adam, — and,  All  sin  consists  in  sinning.  Each  of  these 
plants  itself  on  one  side  of  the  dilemma,  as  containing  the  whole 
truth:  and  each  of  these,  taken  strictly  by  itself,  is  about  as 
true,  for  the  solution  of  the  problem,  as  the  other:  for  each  neg- 
lects the  other,  and  leaves  unaccounted  for  about  half  of  the 
difficulty. 

So,  as  far  as  the  vindication  of  God's  justice  is  concerned,  the 
two  extreme  positions  may  be  said  to  be  these:  (a.)  God's  justice 
has  to  do  only  with  our  personal  acts;  but  God's  inscrutable  be- 
nevolence has  put  us  in  a  condition  in  which  all  those  acts  will 
certainly  be  sinful:  (6.)  God's  justice  has  to  do  both  with  our 
generic  condition  and  our  individual  acts;  but  his  justice  is 
inscrutable. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE   THEORIES   PROPOSED   FOR   THE    SOLUTION   OF    THE    PROBLEM. 

§  1.   The  Theory  of  Immediate  Imputation. 

The  word  impute  means,  to  set  to  one's  account  legally;  or, 
to  reckon  to  one's  account ;  or,  to  treat  as  if  (not,  make  to  be,  but, 
to  treat  as  if).  To  impute  the  guilt  of  a  sin  is  to  treat  as  if  guilty 
of  that  sin.  To  impute  a  righteousness  is  to  treat  as  if  having 
that  righteousness.  The  word  is  not  used  in  the  sense  of  a 
transfer  of  moral  character  from  Adam  to  his  posterity,1  or  of  an 
infusion  of  an  evil  principle  into  the  soul,  but,  of  a  sentence  of 

1  Any  objection  to  immediate  imputation  on  this  ground  is  simply  an  objection 
to  a  misapprehension  of  the  theory.  The  New  England  interpretation  of  this 
imputation,  since  the  younger  Edwards,  has  popularly  been,  transfer  of  moral 
character,  which,  however,  is  denied  to  be  possible  by  both  sides. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  305 

condemnation  passed  on  all  the  race  for  Adam's  first  sin.  Those 
who  hold  the  position  of  immediate  imputation  also  hold  that 
there  is  an  innate,  human  depravity,  but  they  say  the  innate 
depravity  is  not  the  ground  of  the  condemnation.  It  is  tho 
consequence  of  the  imputation.  The  theory  of  immediate  im- 
putation, carried  out  a  little  more  definitely,  is  this:  Adam  is 
both  the  federal  and  natural  head  of  the  human  race,  but  the 
federal  headship  is  first,  prior  in  logic  and  thought.  Adam  as 
the  federal  head  stood,  as  an  individual,  for  all  other  individual 
men,  as  their  immediate  representative.  This  was  by  a  divine 
arrangement.  And  when  he  fell,  they  were  included  in  the  sen- 
tence, because  he  directly  represented  them.  Whatever  he  did 
is  directly — immediately — made  over  to  them.  Then  the  natural 
headship  is  the  means  of  carrying  down  the  consequences  of  the 
imputation  to  his  posterity.  And  so  the  corruption  of  the  pos- 
terity is  the  consequence  and  not  the  ground  of  the  imputation.1 
Objections  to  this  view: 

1.  It  is  not  borne  out  by  Kom.  v.  12,  which  is  the  great  pas- 
sage cited  in  its  favor.     That  passage  undoubtedly  teaches  a 
condemnation  of  all  on  the  ground  of  the  offence  of  one,  but  it 
does  not  teach  that  the  condemnation  is  without  respect  to  the 
moral  condition  of  Adam's  posterity.     It  asserts  the  fact,  but 
does  not  give  the  media,  of  the  condemnation.     This  theory  de- 
nies that  the  exposure  of  mankind  to  punishment  is  made  in  view 
of  the  corruption  of  their  nature,  that  the  corruption  forms  any 
essential  part  of  the  whole  state  of  facts  which  comes  under  the 
divine  regard  in  the  imputation;  the  passage  in  Romans  does 
not  deny  this,  but  is  perfectly  consistent  with  it,  though  it  does 
not  explicitly  affirm  or  deny  on  either  side  of  this  paiticular 
question. 

2.  The  theory  tends  to  present  the  whole  matter  of  sin  and 
its  punishment  in  ail  external,  arbitrary,  and  merely  forensic 
manner.     It  is  merely  an  outside  form  to  the  whole  real  order 

i  Among  the  New  England  divines,  Bellamy  comes  nearest  to  this  statement, 
Works,  i.  223,  224  (Boston  ed.)  Hopkins  also  comes  very  near  to  it,  but  he  does 
not  throw  out  an  intermediate  depraved  nature,  as  having  no  consideration  in  the 
imputation. 


306  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

of  facts.     It  is  simply  a  scaffolding  around  a  building,  and  all 
the  facts  of  the  case  are  inside. 

3  The  theory  rests  upon  an  unreal  and  unphilosophical  view 
of  the  relation  of  Adam  to  his  posterity:  it  is  a  carrying  out  of 
tho  theory  of  the  Covenants  in  such  a  way  as  Scripture  does  not 
warrant.  The  notion  is,  that  Adam,  an  individual,  represents 
all  other  individuals,  so  that  his  act  is  representatively  their  act. 
The  unity  of  the  race,  as  a  moral  organic  whole,  is  lost  in  this 
theory,  just  as  much  as  in  the  extreme  theories  on  the  other  side. 
We  have  only  an  individual  acting  for  a  great  many  individuals. 
(Hence,  too,  the  theory  of  a  limited  atonement:  a  provision  of 
salvation  for  such  and  such  a  specific  number  of  individuals, 
with  no  provision,  although  an  incidental  sufficiency,  for  a  race.) 
The  theory  takes  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  out  of  its  proper 
place,  as  the  sinful  state  of  the  race,  and  individualizes  it.1 

4.  It  is  also  encumbered  with  all  the  difficulties  of  the  ordi- 
nary view:  for  besides  the  imputation,  it  has  to  concede  a  real, 
native  corruption,  in  the  way  of  descent.     And  it  is  obliged  to 
view  this  as  a  punishment,  a  punishment  without  any  ground 
in  the  individual,  without  any  ground  in  the  race  connection  of 
the  individual.2 

5.  Nor  does  it  help  us  in  our  vindication  of  the  divine  gov- 
ernment.    All  the  truth  there  is  about  it  is,  that  we  can,  in  the 
way  of  illustration,  so  represent  the  relation  between  Adam  and 
his  posterity.     But  it  gives  us  a  structure  outside  of  the  real 
matter  rather  than  the  matter  itself:  a  scaffolding  rather  than 
the  skeleton.     It  is  claimed  for  this  theory  that  it  "explains" 
the  corruption  of  the  race,  while  that  of  Edwards,  it  is  said,  sim- 
ply states  the  fact:  but  it  would  rather  appear  that  the  theory 
of  immediate  imputation  neither  states  nor  explains.     There  is  a 
question  of  fact:  what  is  the  connection  between  Adam  and  man- 

1  It  also  involves  creationism  as  to  the  origin  of  individual  souls.  It  is  a  the- 
ory no  more  true  to  fact  than  the  "social  compact"  theory:  in  fact  it  is  in  the 
same  style  of  thought  as  that. 

a  [It  is  doubtful  whether  any  prominent  American  theologians  should  be  re- 
garded as  advocating  the  position  stated  in  this  last  clause.  A  certain  element 
of  mediate  imputation  is  often  recognized  by  those  who  in  the  main  contend  for 
immediate.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  307 

kind  as  related  to  human  corruption?  This  theory  says:  the 
connection  is  primarily  one  of  representation,  and  secondarily 
of  race-unity:  which  does  not  state  the  fact.  Then  there  is 
another  question,  viz.,  How  is  it  just  that  we  should  inherit  the 
corrupt  nature  of  Adam  ?  This  justice,  it  is  said,  is  shown,  by 
the  theory  of  immediate  imputation,  or  representation.  But 
that  is  no  explanation  of  the  justice:  it  is  simply  giving  an  ab- 
stract statement  of  the  fact.  The  whole  question  remains:  How 
is  it  just  that  Adam  should  be  our  representative?  We  are  at 
least  helped  towards  an  answer  by  taking  into  view  our  oneness 
with  him  on  some  real  and  evident  ground. 

6.  The  argument  from  the  imputation  of  Christ's  righteous- 
ness does  not  hold.     It  is  said,  the  pin  of  Adam  must  be  imputed 
to  his  posterity,  without  their  participation,  and  in  order  to  their 
participation,  because  so  the  righteousness  of  Christ  is  imputed 
to  his  people  (and  if  this  latter  be  denied,  justification  is  merged 
in  sanctification).     But,  to  speak  of  nothing  else  here,  the  argu- 
ment assumes  that  because  grace  is  given  gratuitously,  punish- 
ment may  equally  be. 

7.  The  history  of  the  doctrine,  or  at  least  the  weight  of  his- 
toric testimony,  is  against  this  view  of  immediate  imputation. 
Augustine  teaches  that  Adam  stood  for  the  whole  race,  that 
the  whole  was  seminally  in  him,  but  he  does  not  separate  the 
imputation  from  the  propagation  of  the   corrupted   condition. 
The  two  things  go  together.     With  him  Adam  was,  not,  stood 
for,  the  whole  race.     Among  the  Scholastics,  in  Anselm  and 
Aquinas,  we  find  the  separation  first  so  distinctly  made,  and 
carried  out  by  the  Roman  Catholic  divines,  in  the  serrice  of 
their  sacramental  theory.     The   "guilt"  of  sin,  it  was  said,  is 
taken  away  in  baptism:  and  here  the  guilt  is  separated  from, 
and  made  quite  external  to,  the  nature,  while  the  concupiscence 
admitted  to  be  in  the  nature  and  to  remain  after  baptism,  is  de- 
clared not  to  be  sin.     Some  such  position  must  be  taken  by  the 
sacramental   system.     The   earlier   Reformers,    Calvin,    Luther, 
Melancthon,  in  returning  to  the  position  that  concupiscence  is 
of  the  nature  of  sin,  kept  the  immediate  imputation  in  the  back- 
ground.   Turretin  teaches  it  afterwards,  distinctly :  teaches  reatus 


308  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

poence  without  a  reatus  culpce,  but,  as  we  read  him,  he  also  teaches 
both  theories  together.  The  whole  of  the  French  school  of  Saumur 
reacted  from  it;  Stapfer  in  Switzerland,  who  has  the  ablest  discus- 
sion on  the  subject,  states  the  opposite  view,  which  Edwards  cites 
largely ;  and  Edwards  has  argued  the  question  in  the  most  thorough 
and  philosophical  manner.  Edwards  in  this  country  first  distinctly 
said,  that  the  sin  is  not  ours  because  it  is  imputed  to  us,  but  it  is 
imputed  to  us  because  it  is  ours.1 

§  2.  The  T/ieory  of  Direct  Divine  Efficiency,  in  the  Way  of  a 
Constitution? 

The  theory  is :  God  in  his  sovereignty  established  a  constitu- 
tion, in  which  it  was  appointed,  that  by  occasion  of  Adam's  sin, 
all  his  posterity  should  be  brought  into  being  sinners,  or  so  that 
they  should  sin  in  their  first  moral  acts.  The  capital  phrases 
here  are,  "  a  divine  constitution,"  and  "  the  divine  sovereignty." 
Hopkins  (Syst.  i.  268)  says:  "By  a  divine  constitution  there  is 
a  certain  connection  between  the  first  sin  of  Adam  and  the  sin- 
fulness  of  his  posterity,  so  that  as  he  sinned  and  fell  under 
condemnation,  they  in  consequence  of  this  become  sinful  and 
condemned.  Therefore  when  Adam  had  sinned,  by  this  the 
character  and  state  of  all  his  posterity  were  fixed,  and  they 
were,  by  virtue  of  a  covenant  made  with  Adam,  constituted  or 
made  sinners  like  him,  and  therefore  were  considered  as  such 
before  they  had  actual  existence."  Then  the  way  in  which  it 
comes  to  us  is  by  our  consent  to  Adam's  sin  in  our  first  moral 
act.  "This,"  he  says,  "is  the  only  rational,  consistent,  and  satis- 
factory account  of  this  most  interesting  affair  that  can  be  given." 
But  again,  "  Our  sin  is  not  the  penalty  of  Adam's  transgression ; 
the  sin  of  Adam  is  not  imputed  to  us,  we  being  innocent." 
Adam's  posterity  are  "  born  in  sin,"  "so  as  to  begin  to  sin  as 
soon  as  they  begin  to  exist  with  a  capacity  of  sinning,  as  soon 
as  they  begin  to  act  as  moral  agents."  "  If  by  their  being  his 
[Adam's]  children  they  become  corrupt,  they  must  of  consequence 

1  See  Stuart,  Scriptural  views  of  Imputation,  Bib.  Rep.  1836,  against  the  vie^r 
that  Imputation  is  transfer  of  character. 

2  Hopkinsianism,  especially  as  carried  out  by  Dr.  Emmons. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  309 

be  corrupt  as  soon  as  they  exist,  or  become  his  children.  If  it  were 
not  so,  it  would  not  appear  from  fact  that  they  became  sinful  by 
being  the  posterity  of  Adam  "  (p.  274).  As  soon  as  the  infant 
exists,  he  may  have  moral  corruption  in  sin.  Hence  we  are 
not  to  distinguish  between  original  and  actual  sin  (Note,  p.  276). 
Emmons  takes  substantially  the  same  position. 
Objections  to  this  theory: 

1.  It  is  unnatural.     It  neglects  the  unity,  the  vital  moral 
connection  of  the  race,  resolving  everything  into  an  arbitrary 
appointment  and  decree  in  the  most  abstract  form. 

2.  It  supposes  the  earliest  sinful  exercises  to  be  the  result 
of  an  immediate  divine  efficiency,  making  God  to  be  virtually 
the  author  of  sin. 

3.  It  neglects  what  undeniably  exists,  a  nature  or  bias  be* 
fore  the  motions  thereof.     It  is  Berkeleian  in  its  philosophical 
assumption.     It  cannot  answer  the  question:  What  were  chil- 
dren who  died  before  a  sinful  act — were  they  moral  beings,  or 
little  animals? 

Yet,  it  was  a  laboring  upon  a  great  problem,  in  a  peculiar 
and  original  way.  The  solution  is  attained  by  the  virtual  denial 
of  one  half  of  the  problem — the  hereditary  descent  of  the  evil 
nature.  God — decrees — volitions:  that  is  the  whole  scheme. 
It  gives  an  abstract  unreal  " constitution." 

§  3.   The  Hypothesis  of  Physical  Depravity. 

This  says:  In  consequence  of  the  sin  of  Adam,  all  his  de- 
scendants are  born  with  disordered  susceptibilities,  with  a  "  con- 
stitutional" derangement,  which  is  not  sinful  or  guilty,  which 
has  no  character,  but  which  is  always  the  certain  occasion  of 
sinning.  There  is  no  sin  until  sinning  takes  place,  and  this  sin- 
ning is  the  just  ground  of  condemnation.  The  word  constitu- 
tion has  here  a  very  different  sense  from  that  of  the  Hopkinsian 
theory,  considered  in  §  2.  This  is  sometimes  represented  as 
Hopkinsianism,  but  there  is  a  wide  difference,  there  is  a  differ- 
ent psychology.  Neither  Hopkins  nor  Emmons  would  have  ad- 
mitted a  nature,  however  qualified,  as  innocent  or  without 
character.  In  the  old  Hopkinsianism,  the  word  constitution 


CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

is  used  for  a  divine  arrangement;  in  the  modern,  for  what  is 
human,  for  the  physical  constitution  of  man.  The  older  would 
not  grant  any  soul  before  act,  but  the  later  brings  in  a  soul  under 
the  first  act,  alleging  that  until  it  acts  it  is  innocent  or  neutral. 
Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor  not  only  reinstated  the  human  soul  in  its  na- 
tive rights,  but  he  also  affirmed  the  existence  of  susceptibilities, 
tendencies,  dispositions,  antecedent  to  voluntary  action.  But 
as  he  also  held  that  all  that  is  moral  is  in  voluntary  action,  he 
of  course  said  that  these  tendencies  and  dispositions  have  no 
rr.oral  character.1  Here  is  a  human  constitution,  the  basis  of 
Bmful  action,  securing  its  certainty,  and  not  a  mere  divine  ar- 
rangement. This  native  state  may  be  called  vicious,  vitiosity, 
depravity,  anything  to  imply  what  is  odious,  but  it  has  no  moral 
character,  and  the  above  terms  when  applied  to  it  must  not  be 
understood  as  having  any  moral  sense. 
The  Difficulties  of  this  theory: 

1.  It  virtually  resolves  the  whole  doctrine  of  original  sin 
into  a  physical  condition.     It  is  a  proper  doctrine  of  physical 
depravity. 

2.  It  derives  its  plausibility  from  its  definition  of  sin.     It 
defines  sin  as — an  act  or  exercise,  and  as  that  which  in  its  own 
nature  makes  the  individual  worthy  of  everlasting  death.     The 
whole  question  of  original  sin  is  set  aside  by  this  definition.     With 
such  definitions,  all  that  the  theory  claims  must  be  conceded. 

3.  As  it  is  often  carried  out,  it  leads  to  superficial  views  of 
depravity,  so  that  all  spontaneous  feeling,  all  that  is  not  deliber- 
ate choice,  is  excluded  from  the  sphere  of  sin  (some  exclude  even 
the  affections,  putting  all  sin  in  a  purpose).  When  thus  carried 
out,  hardly  any  theory  can  more  surely  undermine  the  founda- 
tions of  religion — and  of  ethics.  It  tends  to  low  views  of  the 
Atonement  and  of  Regeneration.  Denying  the  real  facts  of  de- 
pravity, it  tends  to  deny  some  of  the  essential  things  in  the  re- 
demption. It  cannot  meet,  and  it  cannot  do  away  with,  the  fact 
that  we  feel  guilty  for  our  spontaneous  preferences,  for  our  na- 
ture as  acted  out. 

1  [See  Faith  and  Philosophy,  259.     There  is  an  acute  discussion  in  Beecher'g 
Conflict  of  Ages,  and  in  Mtillef  on  Sin.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  311 

4.  The  theory  makes  an  unnatural  separation  between  what 
has  no  character  and  what  is  moral  in  us.     We  cannot  draw 
the  line  of  accountability  and  of  guilt  by  this  theory.     As  soon 
as  we  attempt  to  do  it  by  finding  acts  in  which  we  have  full 
power  to  the  contrary,  we  narrow  the  sphere  of  our  moral  acts. 

5.  There  is  made  a  like  unnatural  and  merely  theoretical 
separation  between  God's  moral  and  his  general  or  providential 
government.     The  theory  is  compelled  to  exclude  from  God's 
moral  government  all   excepting   deliberate   personal  choices. 
It  cannot  even  allow  God's  moral  government  of  nations  in  a 
distinctive  sense.     It  concedes  that  if  the  great  facts  of  human 
nature  are  brought  under  the  moral  government  of  God,  the 
theory  is  indefensible,  and  so  it  virtually  concedes  that  God's 
justice  cannot  be  defended  in  this  matter.     But  what  is  gained 
by  this?     If  God  has  put  the  race  into  this  condition,  it  must  be 
consistent  with  his  justice  as  well  as  his  benevolence — and  in 
fact,  the  benevolence  is  but  a  part  of  the  justice.     The  theory  is 
fatal  to  man's  culpability1;  for,  to  account  for  the  universality 
of  sinfulness,  it  makes  the  liability  to  sinfulness  very  great, 
but  in  saying  that  this  is  not  sinful,  it  diminishes  the  sense 
of  guilt. 

6.  The  difficulty  as  to  the  divine  government  is  in  fact  only 
carried  back  one  step.     God  gives  a  nature  which  will  certainly 
lead  to  sin  in  every  child  of  Adam.     But  it  is  no  more  easy  to 
reconcile  that  view  with  the  divine  justice  than  the  ordinary 
view.     How  early  does  an  infant  decide?     After  a  month,  or 
six  months,  or  a  year  of  existence?     Can  this*  be  reconciled  with 
our  views  of  what  justice  would  demand,  more  easily  than  other 
theories?     No  real  relief  is  gained  in  fact,  only  in  terminology: 
all  the  advantage  is  in  a  word — sinful. 

7.  While  the  theory  gives  no  real  relief  on  this  point,  it  is 
embarrassed  in  respect  to  the  atonement  and  regeneration,  un- 
less it  allows  to  each  of  these  a  physicaj  efficacy  and  physical 
relations;  and  if  it  does  allow  such  efficacy  to  the  atonement 
and  to  regeneration,  then  why  not  to  sin  ? 

8.  The  scheme  of  a  divine  efficiency  producing  the  sinful 

i  See  Prof.  Fisher,  New  Englander.  Aug.  i860. 


312  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

volition,  in  the  form  of  a  constitution,  referred  back  to  divine  sov 
ereignty,  outrages  all  our  moral  conceptions.  It  is  a  merciless 
system.  Against  this  Dr.  Taylor  protested  with  vigor  and  suc- 
cess. But  his  scheme1  of  a  neutral  state,  neutral  yet  always 
producing  sin,  for  which  state  no  regeneration  or  atonement  is, 
strictly,  provided,  is  inferior  in  its  moral  appeals  to  a  system 
which  allows  that  regeneration  and  atonement  may  be  provided 
for  such  a  state. 

9.  As  respects  the  nature  of  the  decision  which  is  the  real 
beginning  of  sin  in  us,  and  which  must  be  "  inferred  "  from  our 
connection  with  Adam,  it  is  purely  hypothetical;  it  has  no 
known  facts  to  stand  upon.  That  it  was  with  "  full  power  to 
the  contrary  "  we  may  assert  but  can  never  prove.2  To  lay  the 
whole  burden  of  the  vindication  of  the  divine  government  on 
the  hypothesis  of  such  a  power  to  the  contrary  in  a  child  six 
months  or  a  year  old  is,  to  say  the  least,  unwise. 

§  4.   The  Pelagian  and  Unitarian  View. 

We  have  here  no  proper  theory  for  a  solution  of  the  problem, 
but  simply  a  denial  that  the  problem  exists.  The  facts  of  the 
universality,  the  totality,  and  the  native  character  of  sin  are  set 
aside.  It  is  claimed  that  the  sin  of  Adam  did  not  injure  his 
descendants  at  all,  that  men  are  born  with  a  mixture  of  good 
and  evil,  that  we  cannot  use  the  words  depraved,  vicious,  etc., 
in  respect  to  the  natural  condition  of  men.  To  each  one  is  trans- 
mitted the  same  nature  in  kind  and  condition  that  Adam  had, 
and  each  stands  and  falls  as  Adam  did.3 

1  Dr.  K  W.  Taylor,  on  Eom.  v.  12-14.     Object  to  show  "  that  all  the  posterity 
of  Adam  became  sinners  and  subject  to  temporal  death  in  consequence  of  his  sin, 
and  yet  in  such  a  way  or  mode  of  connection  as  not  to  exclude  their  individual 
responsibility  for  their  own  sin,  nor  to  imply  that  temporal  death  was  the  legal 
penalty  of  sin;  but  in  such  a  way,  by  God's  sovereign  constitution,  that  the  sin,  and 
just  (not  actual)  condemnation  of  all  men  to  bear  its  penalty  must  be  inferred 
from  their  connection  with  Adam  as  his  descendants."     "  Such  is  the  constitution 
or  nature  [of  men]  that  in  all  the  appropriate  or  natural  circumstances  of  their 
existence,  they  will  uniformly  sin  from  the  commencement  of  moral  agency." 

2  In  Hopkins  and  Emmons  the  position  taken  merely  amounts  to  this,  that 
the  soul  is  morally  active  from  the  beginning.     Emmons  at  least  leaves  it  an  oper 
question  whether  the  activities  are  not  the  soul. 

3  Bev,  Geo.  E.  Ellis,  Chris.  Exam.,  Nov.  1853. 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION.          31 H 

§  5.   The  Hypothesis  of  Pre-existence. 

In  recent  times  this  theory  has  been  brought  forward  by 
Julius  Muller  as  a  hypothesis  to  explain  the  facts  of  human 
depravity.  (Edward  Beecher  has  also  urged  it  as  a  means  of 
vindicating  the  divine  government,  and  showing  that  God  acts 
according  to  the  principles  of  honor.)  The  hypothesis  is  framed 
to  meet  two  positions:  (a.)  That  all  sin  is  from  personal  choice; 
(6.)  That  we  are  sinful  from  the  beginning  of  our  existence  in 
this  life.  We  suppose  that  those  who  maintain  the  theory  do 
not  hold  it  as  a  fact,  but  simply  as  a  hypothesis,  just  as  it  is 
held  that  there  is  a  diffused  ether  in  space,  in  order  to  account 
for  a  retardation  of  the  heavenly  bodies1 

Objections  : 

1.  The  theory  assumes  that  there  cannot  be  in  man  a  strictly 
depraved  bias,  which  is  not  the  product  of  his  own  free  act.     It 
is  true  that  such  a  bias  becomes  our  choice,  and  that  we  feel 
guilty  for  it  as  such;  but  the  assumption  is  more  than  this, — 
that  it  must  have  been  produced  by  our  choice. 

2.  Modern  advocates  of  this  theory  are  inconsequential  in 
conceding  also  a  kind  of  hereditary  depravity,   of  which  the 
punishment  is  natural  death,  and  of  which  we  are  partakers 
on  account   of  Adam's   transgression.     This  should  hare   led 
them  to  the  orthodox  view. 

3.  The  theory  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  account  of  the 
Fall  in  Genesis  and  the  consequent  Scriptural  representations, 
nor  with  Rom.  v.  12,  etc.1     We  cannot  connect  our  present  being 
with  a  former  state  of  existence;  there  is  no  evidence"  whereas 
there  is  evidence  of  the  connection  of  the  race  with  Adam. 
Rom.  v.  12-19  stands  directly  in  the  way  of  the  theory:  the 
state  of  mankind  as  ruined  is  traced  directly  back  to  Adam's 
transgression. 

i  Dr.  Edward  Beecher  says  this  passage  "gives  a  typical  sequence;  i  «., 
there  is  a  sequence  given  between  Adam  and  his  posterity  which  is  typical,  stand- 
ing for  a  type  of  what  is  true  in  respect  to  each  individual."  But  Kom.  v.  de- 
clares—if anything  can  declare— that  through  the  offence  of  one  condemnation 
came  upon  all.  So  the  interpretation  of  Kom.  v.  12,  etc.,  as  "apparent  and  not 
real  causation  "  is  indefensible.  The  causation,  on  the  very  face  of  the  passage 
is  just  as  real  in  reference  to  Adam  as  to  Christ. 


314  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

4.  It  appears  to  grant  that  the  divine  justice  is  indefensible 
so  far  as  the  present  order  of  things  is  concerned,  without  some 
such  unnatural  hypothesis.     It  will  not  allow  us  to  take  refuge 
in  mystery,  and  trust  in  God.     If  an  infidel  does  not  receive  the 
hypothesis,  then  he  may  say :  you  grant,  what  we  say,  that  the 
present  order  of  things  is  unrighteous. 

5.  It  gives  no  explanation  as  to  our  sense  of  guilt  for  our 
depravity.     We  cannot  very  well  feel  guilty  for  an  act  do&e  in 
an  unconscious,  ante-mundane  state:  while  we  may — and  do — 
feel  guilty  for  our  sinful  dispositions. 

6.  It  gives  really  no  solution  of  the  ultimate  problem  as  to 
moral  evil.     It  simply  pushes  this  back.     Some  facts  in  relation 
to  our  present  experience  are  supposed  to  be  explained  by  the 
theory,  but  the  real  difficulty  of  sin  is  not  touched  at  all. 

7.  Those  who  defend  this  theory  argue  against  the  orthodox 
view  throughout  on  the  ground  that  it  assumes  that  each  of  the 
descendants  of  Adam  is  a  new  created  being  and  is  created  sin- 
ful.   But  this  is  not  the  view  of  the  major  part.    In  this  country, 
the  propagation  theory  is  more  generally  held  than  that  of  cre- 
ationism, — although  some  have  argued  as  though  they  believed 
the  latter. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

OF    SO-CALLED    MEDIATE    IMPUTATION. 

I. — Statement  of  mediate  imputation. 

We  have  given  the  leading  theories  proposed  for  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  sin,  with  the  difficulties  about  them.  One  we 
have  not  particularly  dwelt  upon,  not  considering  it  a  theory,1 
which  we  proceed  to  state. 

1  [In  connection  with  this  clause  "not  considering  it  a  theory,"  the  not* 
already  referred  to,  may  be  recalled:  "Neither  immediate  nor  mediate  impu- 
tation is  wholly  satisfactory."  Understand  by  "Mediate  Imputation"  a  full 
statement  of  the  facts  in  the  case,  and  the  author  accepted  it;  understand  by  it  a 
theory  professing  to  give  the  final  explanation  of  the  facts,  and  it  was  "  not  wholly 
satisfactory* "] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  315 

The  only  true  course  is  that  which  undertakes  nothing  more 
than  tc  give  the  facts  of  the  case,  on  the  Scriptural  basis,  resolv- 
ing the  chief  difficulties  into  the  more  general  problem  of  the 
divine  permission  of  sin  in  the  race  as  a  whole.  This  will  estab- 
lish the  federal  headship  of  Adam,  making  it  follow  the  natural 
headship. 

The  facts  of  the  case  in  their  bearings  on  the  problem  of 
original  sin,  have  already  been  indicated.  They  may  be  thus 
summed  up: 

1.  The  human  race  is  not  a  mere  collection  of  individuals,  but 
an  organic  whole  in  the  sense  of  a  physical  and  moral  unity:  and 
as  such  a  unity  it  is  considered  in  the  Scriptures,  both  in  respect 
to  sin  and  to  redemption, — in  respect  to  both  the  first  and  the 
second  Adam :  so  that  original  sin  and  a  general  provision  for 
redemption  stand  or  fall  together. 

2.  Adam  was  by  divine  appointment  the  head  and  beginning 
of  the  race:  all  men  were  virtually,  potentially,  or  as  some  say, 
seminally,  in  him.     Not  that  they  were  in  him  as  individuals, 
not  that  they  all  nestled  in  him,  but  rather  as  the  acorns  that 
are  in  the  tree  were  in  the  acorns  that  were  planted.     And  this 
was  determined  by  a  divine  constitution  which  made  of  one  blood 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth  (in  this  respect  the  same  as  to 
man  as  in  respect  to  the  animal  and  vegetable  world).     Adam 
at  the  beginning  was  the  race. 

3.  On  this  basis  of  fact,  the  theory  proceeds  to  the  further 
statement  of  fact:  that  the  fall  brought  about  in  Adam  a  loss  of 
original  righteousness  and  corruption  of  nature,  so  that  selfish- 
ness and  worldliness  became  supreme.     This  general  moral  cor- 
ruption becomes  the  heritage  of  all  men  by  descent,  and  it  shows 
itself  in  all  men  in  a  twofold  way:  negatively,  in  the  absence  of 
holy  principle  and  positively,  in  a  propensity  to  moral  evil.     Of 
course  this  bias  to  sin  is  latent  before  the  act,  but  still  it  is  a 
reality  in  every  child  of  Adam,  as  is  proved  by  the  subsequent 
facts. 

4.  On  account  of  this  innate  depravity,  all  men,  mankind  as 
such,  are  exposed,  liable,  to  evils,  to  sufferings  and  death  here, 
and  if  divine  grace  do  not  interpose,  to  eternal  death  here 


316  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

after;  and  in  such  exposure  or  liability  consists  the  Imputa- 
tion.1 The  common  current  phrase  in  theology  is  not  desert, 
but  liability  or  exposure.  This  runs  through  all  Calvinistic 
formulas.  For  this  native  corruption  before  act,  we  need  not 
say  that  the  person  who  is  the  subject  of  it  will  receive,  or 
deserves  everlasting  death.  It  is  a  liability,  exposure, — -justly 
such ;  but  not  personal  desert.  The  desert  of  eternal  death  is 
a  judgment  in  respect  to  individuals  for  their  personal  acts 
and  preferences.  Until  such  choice  there  cannot  be,  meta- 
physically or  ethically,  such  a  judgment.  Original  sin  is  a  doc- 
trine respecting  the  moral  conditions  of  human  nature  as  from 
Adam — generic:  and  it  is  not  a  doctrine  respecting  personal  lia- 
bilities and  desert.  For  the  latter  we  need  more  and  other  cir- 
cumstances. Strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  sin  which  is  deserving, 
but  only  the  sinner.  The  ultimate  distinction  is  here:  There  is 
a  well-grounded  difference  to  be  made  between  personal  desert, 
strictly  personal  character  and  liabilities  (of  each  individual 
under  the  divine  law,  as  applied  specifically,  e.  g.,  in  the  last 
adjudication),  and  a  generic  moral  condition — the  antecedent 
ground  of  such  personal  character.  The  distinction,  however, 
is  not  between  what  has  moral  quality  and  what  has  not,  but 
between  the  moral  state  of  each  as  a  member  of  the  race,  and 
his  personal  liabilities  and  desert  as  an  individual. 

5.  This  original  sin  would  wear  to  us  only  the  character  of 
evil  and  not  of  sinfulriess,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  we  feel 
guilty  in  view  of  our  corruption  when  it  becomes  known  to  us 
in  our  own  acts.  Then  there  is  involved  in  it  not  merely  a 
sense  of  evil  and  misery,  but  also  a  sense  of  guilt;  moreover,  re- 
demption is  necessary  to  remove  it,  which  shows  that  it  is  a 
moral  state.  Here  is  the  point  of  junction  between  the  two  ex- 
treme positions,  that  we  sinned  in  Adam,  and  that  all  sin  con- 
sists in  sinning. 

1  [In  this  statement  also,  it  is  intended  to  keep  to  what  are  believed  to  be  sim- 
ple facts.  "  Imputation,"  viewed  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  a  coupling  of  evils,  suffer- 
ings, death  with  a  state  of  moral  abnormity;  Imputation,  viewed  as  an  attempt 
to  state  the  reasons  and  all  ihe  reasons  which  the  divine  mind  has  for  treating 
moral  abnormity  thus  and  not  otherwise,  is  theory,  and  theory  which  is  perhapf 
beyond  our  present  power  of  construction.] 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  KEDEMPTIOX.          317 

6.  The  guilt  of  Adam's  sin  is — this  exposure,  this  liability  on 
account  of  such  native  corruption, — of  our  having  the  same  na 
ture,  in  the  same  moral  bias.  The  guilt  of  Adam's  sin  is  not  to 
be  separated  from  the  existence  of  this  evil  disposition.1  And 
this  guilt  is  what  is  imputed  to  us.  Here  are  to  be  considered 
the  important  statements  of  Edwards  (ii.  482,  etc.)  "  The  first 
existing  of  a  corrupt  disposition  in  their  hearts  is  not  to  be 
looked  upon  as  sin  belonging  to  them  distinct  from  their  parti- 
cipation in  Adam's  first  sin ;  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  extended  pollu- 
tion of  that  sin  through  the  whole  tree  by  virtue  of  the  consti- 
tuted union  of  the  branches  with  the  root."  Jusi:  before,  "I 
am  humbly  of  the  opinion,  that  if  any  have  supposed  the  chil- 
dren of  Adam  to  come  into  the  world  with  a  double  guilt,  one  the 
guilt  of  Adam's  sin,  another  the  guilt  arising  from  their  having 
a  corrupt  heart,  they  have  not  so  well  considered  the  matter." 
And  afterwards,  "  Derivation  of  evil  disposition  (or  rather  co- 
existence) is  in  consequence  of  the  union  " — but  u  not  prop- 
erly a  consequence  of  the  imputation  of  his  sin;  nay,  rather 
antecedent  to  it,  as  it  was  in  Adam  himself.  The  first  depravity 
of  heart,  and  the  imputation  of  that  sin,  are  both  the  conse- 
quence of  that  established  union,  but  yet  in  such  order,  that  the 
evil  disposition  is  first,  and  the  charge  of  guilt  consequent,  as  it 
was  in  the  case  of  Adam  himself."  (He  quotes  Stapfer:  "The 
Reformed  divines  do  not  hold  immediate  and  mediate  imputa- 
tion separately  but  always  together.")  And  still  further,  ii.  493: 
"And  therefore  the  sin  of  the  apostasy  is  not  theirs  merely  be- 
cause God  imputes  it  to  them:  but  it  is  truly  and  properly 
theirs,  and  on  that  ground  God  imputes  it  to  them."2 


1  [The  author  would  no  doubt  have  continued  to  urge  this  position,  had  he 
written  out  his  system  of  theology.  He  always  approved  the  general  positions  of 
Edwards  given  above.  But  it  is  a  question  whether  he  did  not  intend  to  make 
some  final  statements  which  would  bring  out  more  distinctly  the  proper  federal 
headship  of  Adam  on  the  basis  of  the  natural  headship.  All  that  is  found,  how- 
ever, is  the  note,  "  Mediate  imputation  not  wholly  satisfactory."  There  is  no 
evidence  that  he  meditated  any  retraction  of  what  he  gave  in  his  lectures,  but  he 
probably  had  in  mind  a  statement  of  the  whole  subject  under  some  larger  point 
of  vievv.J 

a  To  the  same  effect,  Dr.  John  Owens,  Works,  xii.  249.  Dr.  Payne  (Cong'l  Lec- 
tures) calls  original  sin  "  a  loss  of  chartered  blessings."  And  in  fact  the  so-called 


318  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

II. — The  bearings  of  this  view  upon  the  three  problems  which 
have  been  stated. 

1.  The  relation  of  the  race  to  the  individual:  of  Adam  to  his 
descendants.     This  is  stated  in  the  theory.     Adam,  by  divine 
constitution,  was  made  the  head  and  source  of  the  human  race. 
They  share  in  the  consequences  of  his  transgression.     At  the 
same  time,  from  the  beginning,  over  against  this,  redemption 
was  provided.     In  the  divine  purpose  the  sin  was  doubtless 
permitted  and  allowed  to  be  handed  down  with  respect  to  the  re- 
demption: not  for  its  own  sake,  nor  for  the  sake  of  the  punish- 
ment of  it,  nor  for  the  sake  of  administering  a  merely  moral 
system,  but — for  the  sake  of  the  redemption,  eternally  provided 
in  view  of  it.     Hence  "  this  is  the  condemnation  "  or  judgment 
(John  iii.  19).     To  all  that  have  known  of  Christ,  the  judgment 
— final — to  endless  ruin — is  for  the  rejection  of  Him.     Infants 
are  undoubtedly  to  be  considered  as  included  in  the  covenant  of 
redemption.     As  to  all  dying  in  infancy,  and  as  to  the  heathen 
who  do  not  know  of  Christ,  perhaps  no  better  statement  has 
been  made  than  that  of  the  Westminster  Confession  (Conf.,  chap. 
x.  §.  3):  "Elect1  infants,  dying  in  infancy"  (including  all  infants 
dying  in  infancy  according  to  the  almost  universally  prevalent 
hope  and  belief)  "  are  regenerated  and  saved  by  Christ  through 
the  Spirit,  who  worketh  when,  and  where,  and  how  he  pleaseth. 
So  also  are  all  other  elect  persons,  ivho  are  incapable  of  being  out- 
ivardly  catted  by  the  ministry  of  the  word" 

2.  The  relafion  of  the  common  sinfulness  of  the  race  to  in- 
dividual sin.     The  union  between  these  two  points  and  their 
harmony  is  fonnd  in  the  fact  of  experience  to  which  we  have  ad- 
verted— our  s^nse  of  guilt  in  view  of  this  depravity  when  it  be- 
comes known  to  us,  and  the  "  consent"  of  which  we  are  conscious. 
This  is  a  fact  above  all  theory. 

Covenant  is  nr>+  historically  a  covenant  only,  because  it  is  much  mora  than  a  cov- 
enant; a  system  "  not  of  divine  equity  merely  but  of  rich  sovereign  grace:"  a  plan 
by  which,  in  and  through  a  human  race,  good  might  become  "  cosmical,"  as  Dor- 
ner  has  rrat  it. 

1  [Th*  author  in  a  certain  place  of  his  notes  for  lectures  has  referred,  with  strong 
approval,  to  Crawford's  statement  ("Fatherhood  of  God,"  App.):  Election  comes  to 
this — "  that  what  God  does  in  time  He  purposed  to  do  from  eternity."] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  319 

A.  fuller  statement.  Question:  Is  there  any  common  ground 
to  which  we  may  come  in  the  conflict  between  the  two  positions 
— that  all  men  sinned  in  Adam  and  that  all  sin  consists  in 
sinning? 

(a.)  The  sinning  and  falling  in  Adam  is  not  of  the  individuals 
of  the  race — else  it  were,  as  has  been  said,  a  fall  of  millions  and 
not  of  one.  It  is,  that  human  nature  thereby  came  into  a  corrupt 
condition,  having  a  bias  and  propensity  to  sin,  and  exposed  to 
evils  and  death.  This  each  one  has  by  descent.  This  is  the  sin 
and  fall  in  Adam. 

(b.)  As  soon  as  each  individual  acts  morally,  this  corrupt  na- 
ture becomes  his  own  preference,  his  own  immanent  bias  and 
preference.  K  is  for  this  that  he  feels  guilty  and  condemned. 
And  there  is  the  point  of  junction  in  experience  between  these 
two  views.  Were  it  not  for  this  preference,  our  whole  native 
condition  would  wear  to  each  one  the  character  of  an  evil,  and 
not  of  a  strictly  guilty,  state.  This  is  a  fact  of  universal  experi- 
ence and  the  ultimate  fact  in  our  analysis,  the  last  point  in  which 
the  two  views  come  together.  (This  is  what  Hopkins- and  Em- 
mons  insist  upon,  though  they  are  led — especially  the  latter — 
to  insist,  that  this  is  the  beginning  of  any  moral  condition  in  the 
descendants  of  Adam,  and  is  coeval  with  the  existence  of  each 
individual.)  Here  is  where  reatus  culpce  and  Yeatus  poence  meet. 

The  question  is  fundamentally  of  the  relation  of  the  generic 
to  the  individual,  a  question  between  Realism  and  Nominalism. 
There  is  no  more  difficulty  in  principle  about  original  sin  than 
about  anything  that  is  native.1  In  much  of  the  modern  ethics, 
what  is  moral  is  made  merely  individual;  pure  individualism  ia 
asserted :  the  existence,  the  "  real"2  existence  of  the  generic  moral 

1  [/.  e.,  in  the  relation  of  the  moral  abnormity  of  each  individual  to  the  moral 
abnormity  of  the  race,  of  the  stock  from  which  each  springs.     As  regards  the  di- 
vine view  of  the  condition  of  the  race,  which  pronounces  this  to  be  strictly  sinful, 
the  author  of  course  admits  difficulty.     He  inclines  to  carry  back  the  difficulty  of 
the  permitted  perpetuation  of  sin  and  of  God's  moral  judgment  upon  this,  intc 
the  insoluble  difficulty  of  the  permission  of  the  existence  of  sin,  and  to  leave  it 
there.] 

2  [An  elaborate  paper  by  the  author  on  Kealisni  and  Nominalism — elaborate, 
t.  e.,  as  a  preparation  for  a  work  which  never  was  executed — comes  out  upon  the 
general  position  of  universalia  in  re,  but  insists  that  the  universals  must  be  recog 
nized  as  realities  as  truly  as  the  individuals  are.] 


320  CHKISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  not  allowed.     Here  ethics  is  in  the  rear  of  the  advance  in  the  - 
natural  sciences. 

3.  As  to  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God  in  providing  such  a 
constitution  for  the  human  race. 

The  common  view,  which  vindicates  God's  justice  and  good 
ness  on  the  basis  of  a  sdentia  media,  is  not  entirely  satisfactory. 

The  fact  is  that  strictly  the  question  here  is  not  of  God'a 
justice  in  respect  to  individuals,  but  to  the  whole  race.  Yet 
as  the  question  is  always  argued  with  reference  to  individuals,  we 
will  consider  it  in  that  relation. 

(a.)  If  there  was  to  be  a  race  at  all,  existing  by  descent,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  it  could  be  under  any  other  condition  j1  and 
it  was  better  to  have  a  race  even  with  such  liabilities  than  not 
to  have  a  race. 

(b.)  As  to  individuals,  it  is  not  improbable  that  it  is  better  for 
each  one  to  be  in  a  state  where  there  is  a  common  sinfulness 
and  in  which  there  is  a  common  redemption  provided,  than  it  would 
be  for  all  the  members  of  the  race  to  stand  or  fall,  each  by  him- 
self, without  such  a  provision?  As  we  now  come  into  the  world, 
it  is  under  a  dispensation  of  grace  offered.  With  such  a  consti- 
tution, there  is  hereditary  depravity : 3  without  it  there  might, 
there  probably  would  have  been,  angelic  liabilities. 

(c.)  Yet  ultimately  we  must  say  :  The  depths  of  the  divine 
wisdom  and  sovereignty  we  cannot  penetrate,  on  any  theory— 
of  justice  or  of  physical  law.  The  ultimate  reason  of  the  existence 
of  sin  is  not  disclosed,  and  the  question  of  God's  justice  and  good- 
ness in  dealing  with  mankind  as  the  subjects  of  original  sin 
runs  back  into  that  greater  problem — the  divine  permission 
of  sin. 

1  [Any  other,  i.  e.,  than  this,  in  which  advantages  and  attainments,  as  well  as1 
disadvantages  and  forfeitures,  should  be  transmitted,  and  the  whole  line  of  trans* 
mission,  so  far  as  it  had  moral  bearings,  should  be  under  the  divine  moral  ap- 
proval or  displeasure.] 

2  Some  suggest:  Adam  was  in  a  better  position  for  deciding  than  any  of  his 
posterity  would  have  been;  could  we  have  had  a  voice,  we  should  have  chosen  him 
to  decide  for  us,  etc. ;  but  this  does  not  reach  to  the  heart  of  the  difficulty. 

8  [Reference  is  made  with  approval  to  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  (Essays,  p.  71): "  We 
believe  as  fully  and  joyfully  as  he  [Prof.  Stuart]  does,  that  the  grace  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  secures  the  salvation  of  all  who  have  no  personal  sins. to  answer  for."] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  321 

Another  statement.  On  the  question:  If  no  provision  for 
redemption  had  been  intended,  would  God  have  continued  the 
race  through  Adam,  after  his  fall?  Would  God,  i.  e.,  have 
brought  into  existence  a  race,  merely  that  He  might  show 
the  glory  of  his  justice  in  punishing  forever  all  that  belonged 
to  it? — It  is  very  possible  that  a  general  redemption  is  only 
possible  where  there  is  a  race;  that  the  same  constitution  which 
involves  liability  to  generic  sin  makes  a  general  atonement 
possible.  Christ,  in  order  to  redemption,  must  have  part  in 
the  race,  be  consubstantial  with  man.  We  are  apt  to  spiritual- 
ize both  sin  and  redemption  more  than  the  Scripture  does.  In 
the  Bible,  sin  is  connected  with  the  death  of  the  body,  redemp- 
tion with  the  resurrection  of  the  body ;  sin  is  from  Adam  to  the 
race,  redemption  from  the  second  Adam  to  the  race.  The  phy- 
sical and  the  moral  are  here  blended. 

The  grand  relief  in  respect  to  the  problem  of  sin  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  will  of  man,  nor  in  any  real  or  supposed  efficacy 
of  that  will  against  the  inroads  and  might  of  human  sinfulness. 
Exalt  that  power  as  we  may,  still,  all  that  we  can  get  out 
of  it  is  a  vindication  of  our  feeling  of  guilt  and  responsibility  in 
view  of  the  evil  and  sin  that  are  in  us.  Its  best  effect  is  reached 
when  we  have  deepened  the  sense  of  sin  and  sharpened  the 
feeling  of  responsibility.  It  may  thus  serve  a  purpose  of  vin- 
dicating the  divine  justice  in  respect  to  our  lot.  But  farther 
than  this  it  cannot  carry  us.  It  is  not  a  power  on  which  we  can 
rely  for  our  moral  change ;  that  change  is  only,  in  fact,  through 
divine  grace,  through  the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 
To  have  that  redemption  is  absolutely  essential  for  pardon. — Nor 
is  that  power  of  the  will  of  any  real  availability  in  respect  to 
accounting  for  our  first  moral  choices  in  this  sphere  of  being. 
It  only  enables  us  to  say  they  were  in  some  sense  avoidable,  not 
necessary,  i.  e.,  by  a  merely  physical  necessity.  But  still  the 
broad,  terrible  fact  remains,  that  there  is  that  in  human  nature 
which,  in  spite  of  this  power,  always  carries  the  will,  and  begets 
our  immanent  preferences.  The  real  thing  in  us  is  this  mighty 
power  of  sin.  To  meet  speculative  difficulties,  some  such  view 
of  the  will  as  that  referred  to  above,  has  its  value:  to  meet  our 


322  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

practical  difficulties  we  need  more  than  this.  As  a  matter  of 
fad,  to  all  the  human  race  there  is  no  hope  out  of  the  redemp- 
tion that  is  in  Christ  Jesus. — And  on  the  highest  question  as 
to  God's  moral  government,  the  solution  must  be  found  not  out- 
side of,  but  within  the  Christian  system.  The  great  ultimate 
ground  is  this :  this  world  was  made,  sin  was  permitted,  Christ 
came,  the  kingdom  of  God  was  established,  in  view  of,  and  with 
respect  to,  Redemption  from  sin. 

Perhaps  the  only  position  where  we  can  get  any  real  relief, 
as  far  as  the  divine  government  is  concerned  (and  it  is  only 
partial),  is  this:  Adam  sinned;  God  would  at  once  have  con- 
demned to  remediless  punishment,  had  He  not  intended  to 
redeem.  Adam  would  have  had  no  posterity,  had  it  not  been 
for  redemption ;  our  coming  into  being  is  under  the  economy  of 
redemption.  Our  position  is  between  the  two  economies — the 
evils  of  the  one,  through  natural  descent — the  hope  of  the  other, 
through  grace.  We  may  be  saved  through  Christ.  It  is  better 
for  us  to  come  into  being  thus  than  to  come,  each  to  be  tested 
for  himself.  To  oil  to  whom  the  gospel  is  offered  the  last  and  great 
condemnation  will  be  that  they  have  rejected  grace  provided 
and  offered.  Then  as  to  those  tvho  die  in  infancy,  there  is  a  well- 
grounded  hope  that  they  are  of  the  elect.1  As  to  the  heathen, 
and  those  who  have  never  heard  of  Christ:  doubtless  they  will 
be  judged  finally  according  to  the  light  that  they  have  had:  not 


1  As  to  the  salvation  of  infants,  Clem.  Alex,  held  that  they  could  not  be  saved 
without  baptism,  Augustine,  the  same  (De  Anima,  lib.  3,  c.  xiv. ;  contra  Pel.  lib.  i.  xl. 
— Pelagius  had  said:  "Quommeantscio,  quoeant,  wescio");Perrone,  in  his  Manual, 
defends  the  proposition:  "Infantes  ex  hac  vita  sine  baptismo  decedentes  ad  seter- 
nam  salutem  pervenire  non  possunt;"  Martin  (E.  C.)  in  his  La  Via  Futura  (Paris, 
1853,  pp.  435-455)  cites  testimony  of  the  Fathers  that  unbaptized  infants  in  tho 
Limbus  Infantum  suffer  deprivation  only,  not  pain;  Brownson,  Quar.  Rev.,  1862-S, 
assigns  them  to  "  a  state  of  natural  beatitude;"— it  is  noticeable  that  Arminius  ad- 
mitted the  damnation  of  infants  as  possible  (Works,  iii.  368,  ed.  of  1853):  "I  affirm 
that  they  rejected  the  grace  of  the  Gospel  in  their  parents,  grandparents,  great- 
grandparents,  etc.,  by  which  act  they  deserved  to  be  abandoned  of  God;"  see  the 
debate  between  Lyman  Beecher  (" Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,"  1828,  i.  42,  78,  95,  149) 
and  Andrews  Norton  (Chris.  Exam.,  1827,  iv.  431;  v.  229,  316,  506);  also  a  good 
article  by  H.  C.  Townley,  Chris.  Rev.,  July,  1863,  p.  418;  [also,  article  by  Dr. 
Prentiss,  Pres.  Rev..  1883]. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  323 

merely  according  to  and  by  their  nature,  but  as  they  have  used 
or  not  used  such  opportunities  of  repentance  as  have  been  afforded 
— and  this,  too,  on  the  ground  of  the  redemption  in  Christ, 
whether  they  have  known  it -or  not.  This  is  not  free  from 
difficulties;  but  it  seems  to  be  the  utmost  that  can  be  said. 
It  makes  Redemption  enter  into  the  constitution  and  the  final 
judgment  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

OBJECTIONS   TO   THE    DOCTRINE    OF   ORIGINAL   SIN. 

1.  It  is  said  that  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  makes  sin  to  be 
the  cause  of  sin.     But  this  does  not  hold  properly  against  the 
doctrine,  because: 

(a.)  According  to  the  doctrine,  the  cause  of  all  sin  in  the 
world  is  the  transgression  of  Adam :  sin  is  not  the  cause  of  sin, 
but  Adam  is  the  cause  of  sin. 

(&.)  This  original  sin  or  native  depravity  in  us  is,  properly 
speaking,  the  source,  the  ground,  the  principle  of  sin  rather 
than  the  cause.  The  category  to  be  applied — sin  being  in  the 
race— is  not  that  of  cause  and  effect,  but,  of  ground  and  con- 
sequence, of  source  and  stream.  The  objection  assumes  that 
all  sin  is  a  choice,  of  a  person  ;  but  this  is  not  the  sense  of  the 
doctrine. 

(<?.)  The  objection  proves  too  much.  Sin  may  "be  the  cause 
of  sin.  Sinful  habits,  when  formed,  are  the  cause  of  sin  in 
everyday  experience. 

2.  It  is  objected   that  a  propensity  to  sin   is  not  properly 
sinful.     This  has  been  considered  already,  but  the  reasons  for 
calling  it  sinful  may  be  here  summed  up. 

(a.)  Such  is  usage.  The  confining  of  all  terms  denoting 
moral  quality  to  individual  acts  belongs  to  a  conventional  and 
narrow  system  of  ethics,  to  the  philosophy  of  individualism. 


324  CHRIST!  AX   THEOLOGY. 


It  is  sinful  in  the  sense  that  it  is  from  sin  and  leads  to 
sin.  It  is  from  sin  alone,  and  leads  only  to  sin. 

(c.)  It  is  the  same  disposition  in  us  latent  for  which  we  feel 
guilty  and  which  we  know  to  be  sinful  when  it  comes  into  dis- 
tinct consciousness.  A  propensity  to  sin  is  a  latent,  inordinate 
love  of  the  world  and  self.  All  grant  that,  after  choice,  the  pro- 
pensity is  sinful.  How  does  it  now  differ  from  what  it  was 
before?  It  has  become  a  personal,  manifested  choice,  involving 
personal  liabilities.  As  soon  as  we  define  sin  by  its  real  nature, 
and  not  by  its  liabilities,  not  by  its  causes  and  consequences, 
we  have  to  bring  a  propensity  to  sin  under  it. 

(d.)  It  is  sinful  because  it  exposes  all  the  members  of  the 
race  to  divine  judgments  under  the  moral  government  of  God, 
to  evil,  misery,  death. 

(e.)  Because  we  need  regeneration  arid  atonement  in  order 
to  be  delivered  from  it:  and  these  are  moral  and  not  physical 
remedies. 

Yet,  while  vindicating  the  propriety  of  calling  it  sinful,  we 
would  not  dispute  about  a  mere  word,  if  the  facts  of  the  case 
are  conceded.  Native  depravity  is  perhaps  a  more  unobjection- 
able term  than  original  sin.  If  people  call  it  native  depravity 
in  a  moral  sense,  and  say  that  it  comes  from  Adam,  all  that  is 
essential  is  granted. 

3.  It  is  objected  that  the  doctrine  makes  two  kinds  of  sin. 
Of  course  it  does,  if  sin  is  to  be  defined  as  actual  transgression, 
as  specific  volition,  as  conscious  preference.     Otherwise  not.     It 
makes  two  forms  of  sin  :  one  the  conscious  and  the  other  the  un- 
conscious; one  the  native  and  the  other  the  active.     The  objec- 
tion sometimes  is:  there  cannot  be  any  sin  without  a  knowledge 
of  good:  choice  of  evil,  knowing  the  good,  is  sin,  and  only  this. 
But  the  Apostle  Paul  says:  "I  had  not  known  sin  but  by  the 
law."    The  sin  was  there  before.     The  Psalmist  prays:  "  Cleanse 
thou  me  from  secret  faults."     There  is  a  great  deal  of  sin  in  us, 
in  all  Christians,  which  is  only  brought  out  in  times  of  tempta- 
tion and  trial. 

4.  Objection  is  sometimes  made  to  the  form  which  the  doc- 
trine takes  in  mediate  imputation,     (a,)  This  is  said  to  be  "  Re- 


ANTECEDENTS  OF  KEDEMPTION.          325 

alism,"1  involving  numerical  identity  of  substance  in  all  the 
members  of  the  race.  But  the  doctrine  does  not  involve  any 
such  speculation.  The  assertion  that  the  human  race  is  a  reality 
as  truly  as  the  human  individual  is,  is  not  "  realism "  in  the 
sense  of  this  objection.  (&.)  It  is  said  that  the  doctrine  in  this 
form  involves  an  act  of  a  nature, — which  is  impossible.  But 
this  only  on  the  assumption  of  universalia  ante  rem.  Universolia 
in  re  is  consistent  with  the  position,  that  "  in  Adam  the  person 
corrupted  the  nature,  in  us  the  nature  corrupts  the  person/' 
There  ivas  a  nature  to  be  corrupted  by  an  act:  there  is  a  nature 
which  furnishes  the  corrupt  ground  of  the  person  who  becomes 
corrupt,  (c.)  For  the  same  reasons,  it  is  said  that  this  form  of 
the  doctrine  would  bring  upon  us  the  guilt  of  all  of  Adam's  sins, 
and  of  all  the  sins  of  our  forefathers.  But  this  would  only 
hold  against  a  form  of  mediate  imputation  which  should  deny 
the  federal  headship  of  Adam,  asserting  all  the  evils  of  sin  to 
be  mere  consequences  of  transmission,  and  denying  any  righteous 
judgment  of  God  upon  the  race  as  in  Adam,  the  public  person, 
and  upon  his  act,  his  first  sin,  as  the  source  of  all  human  corrup- 
tion and  transgression,  (d.)  It  is  said  that  mediate  imputation 
is  no  imputation:  that  "impute"  means,  to  reckon  to  one  what 
is  done  by  another.  Waiving  the  question  a  whether  this  is 
accurate,  we  assert  that  any  tolerable  doctrine  of  mediate  impu- 
tation does  "reckon  to  one  what  is  done  by  another."  The 
mode  or  media  of-  reckoning  may  be  different  in  different  cases. 

In  conclusion  we  say  that  the  definition  of  sin,  which  will 
cover  original  sin,  is  our  standard  definition:  "Sin  is  any  want 
of  conformity  unto,  or  transgression  of,  the  law  of  God." 

1  See  Princeton  Review,  Jan.  1865. 

2  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  Syst.  Theol.,  ii.  194,  says:  "So  far  as  the  meaning  of  the 
word  [impute]  is  concerned,  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  thing  imputed  be 
.....  our  own  personally,  or  the  sin  or  righteousness  of  another." 


326  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ITS   POWER   OVER   THE    HUMAN   WIIL. 

We  have  here  the  question  of  Natural  Ability  and  Moral  In 
virility.1 

The  inherent  difficulty  of  the  inquiry,  and  of  the  right  mode 
of  stating  the  exact  truth,  comes  from  the  fact  that  the  truth  is 
not  a  simple,  but  a  relative  one.  We  are  in  danger  of  taking 
one  half  and  neglecting  the  other,  of  stating  the  natural  ability 
without  the  moral  inability,  or  the  moral  inability  without  the 
natural  ability,  whereas  both  together  make  the  truth.  Here, 
too,  we  have  to  do  with  one  form  of  the  reconciliation  of  the 
great  facts  of  dependence  and  free-agency,  and  also,  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  depravity  with  the  existence  of  accountability.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  truth  must  be  so  stated  as  to  save  both  sides. 
Besides,  here  the  greatest  interests  are  at  stake :  the  divine  gov- 
ernment on  the  one  hand,  and  human  freedom  on  the  other; 
while  the  discussion  also  bears  upon  the  most  solemn  and  impor- 
tant part  of  preaching — the  grounds  for  the  exhortation  of  the 
sinner  to  repentance. 

One  way  of  meeting  this  difficulty  is  to  assert  both  truths 
in  an  unreconciled  way.  This  is  the  common  sense  mode.  This 
is  the  way  in  which  the  truths  lie  in  most  minds,  each  being 
held  to  be  proved  by  sufficient  evidence,  and  both  being  affirmed 
without  the  endeavor  to  reconcile  them.  God  is  sovereign,  mar 
is  free:  God's  sovereignty  extends  to  all  events,  man's  freedom 
to  all  his  moral  acts.  Or,  in  another  point  of  view,  man  is  de- 
praved and  always  will  sin,  and  yet  he  is  always  free  in  doing 
it.  This  is  the  sound,  practical  way  of  looking  at  the  subject. 
Many  theoretical  attempts  do  not  amount  to  much  more  than 
this.  And  it  is  better  to  leave  the  question  in  this  shape,  hold- 
ing both  positions,  each  by  itself,  than  so  to  state  and  enforce 
either  as  to  cut  the  nerve  of  the  other.  No  theory  of  freedom 

i  See  Smalley's  Sermons,  reprinted  in  Brown's  Theol.  Tracts,  I.  Compare 
also,  Dr.  Hiokok's  Science  of  Mind  from  Consciousness. 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  327 

can  be  true,  which  interferes  with  the  divine  government,  in  re- 
generation, election,  etc. ;  and  no  theory  of  the  divine  government 
can  be  true,  which  interferes  with,  or  denies,  the  proper  respon- 
sibility and  free  will  of  man.  And  besides,  all  concede  that  it 
is  necessary  to  preach  both  in  order  to  make  a  right  impression — 
both  certainty  and  free-agency :  now,  if  it  is  necessary  to  preach 
both,  neither  is  true  by  itself  alone,  neither  is  true  in  an  ab- 
stract statement  about  it,  made  without  respect  to  the  other; 
no  definition  of  either  can  be  correct  which  is  not  made  with 
respect  to  the  other,  in  view  of  it,  and  as  balanced  by  it.  An 
abstract  metaphysical  inability  and  an  abstract  metaphysical 
ability  are  both  false. 

The  problem  therefore  is,  how  to  state  the  two  facts  in  their 
relations  to,  and  connections  with,  each  other.  The  different  ex- 
treme positions  are  these:  (1)  Man  has  no  ability  of  any  kind  to 
repent  and  turn  to  God;  he  is  utterly  disabled  to  all  good,  in 
the  proper  strict  sense  of  inability  and  disability.  His  con- 
dition is  that  of  "absolute  disability."  (2)  The  counter  extreme 
position  is,  that  man  has  in  the  strict  sense  power  to  the  con- 
trary in  all  moral  acts;  i.  e.,  entire  adequacy  to  repentance,  full 
power,  all  power  needful  for  the  act  of  repentance,  is  given  in 
the  power  of  contrary  choice.  The  mere  fact  of  power  to  the 
contrary  choice'  gives  full  power  to  repent,  without  divine  grace. 
(3)  Man  has  the  natural  ability  to  repent,  while  he  is  morally 
unable,  and  the  two  are  consistent  with  each  other.  This  is 
the  New  England  statement,  the  position  of  Edwards. 

§  1.  Preliminary  Definitions. 

1.  Natural  Inability.     By  this  is  meant  a  want  of  powers  or 
power  of  choice,  or  of  physical  advantages  and  opportunities, 
e.  (j.,  when  one  lacks  the  requisite  faculties,  so  that  the  power 
of  choice  cannot  apply  to  the  case,  as  when  an  impotent  man 
resolves  to  walk  and  cannot.     This  is  always  applied  in  connec- 
tion with  the  possibility  of  there  being  a  willing  mind.     Natura1 
inability  means,  that  one  cannot  though  he  will. 

2.  Natural  Ability.     By  this  is  meant,  having  all  the  faculties 
and  p<  wers  of  a  moral  agent,  including  the  power  of  choice, 


328  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

— whatsoever  is  in  the  possible  compass  of  one's  natural  capac- 
ities, so  that,  if  a  man  wills  to  do  anything,  he  can  do  it,  just 
up  to  the  extent  of  his  natural  capacities;  e.  g.,  a  man  wills  to 
jump;  his  natural  ability  is  the  extent  to  which  he  can  jump  if 
he  puts  forth  all  his  power.  If  a  man  is  capable  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  degrees  of  virtue,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty-one 
are  demanded,  that  one  hundred  and  twenty-first  is  not  right- 
fully demanded  of  him,  because  it  is  not  in  the  compass  of  his 
natural  capacities.  Whatever  his  physical  capacities,  all  his 
powers  of  reason,  heart,  and  will  combined,  can  effect,  provided 
he  wills  it — that  is  his  natural  ability.1 

3.  Moral  Inability.    By  this  is  meant,  such  a  state  of  the  heart 
or  will  as  makes  continued  sinful  action  certain,  such,  e.  g.,  as  makes 
it  certain  that  the  sinner  will  not  repent  without  divine  grace. 
It  means — unwillingness,  but  unwillingness  as  implying  a  state 
of  the  will  supremely  fixed  on  some  end  or  object,  a  permanent 
state  or  habit  of  the  will,  the  supreme  love  of  the  world.     It  is 
sometimes  said  that  the  older  New  England  theologians  meant 
by  moral  inability  merely  unwillingness,  and  that  is  true  if  the 
word  unwillingness  is  used  in  its  full  meaning,  as  setting  forth 
the  fact  that  the  will  is  in  a  permanent  state  of  choice.     The 
word  meant  such  unwillingness  as  is  a  real  and  sufficient  ob- 
stacle to  actual  repentance. 

4.  Moral  Ability.     This  means  such  a  state  of  heart  and  will 
as  implies  a  preference  for  anything,  and  the  ability  of  doing 
which  results  from  the  preference.     It  means  more  than  the  gen- 
eral capacity  which  is  involved  in  free  agency  or  natural  ability, 
it  is  intended  to  designate — entire,  immediate  adequacy  to  an  end. 

Natural  Inability  is  =  a  man  cannot  though  he  will. 

Natural  Ability  is  =  a  man  can  if  he  will, — can  if  he  will 
not, — he  has  all  that  is  necessary  except  the  will,  but  the  will 
is  needful  to  the  actualizing  of  the  case. 

Moral  Inability  is  =  a  man  will  not  though  he  can. 

Moral  Ability  is  =  a  man  will.    It  is,  the  state  of  the  will  itself. 

1  In  later  schools  of  New  England  theology  there  has  been  a  curious  changing 
of  the  meaning  of  these  terms,  so  as  to  make  natural  ability  signify  only  the  power 
to  the  contrary  choice.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  sense  given  above  was  the  mean- 
ing originally,  from  the  terms  used  as  equivalent  to  it,  e.  g.,  "physical  ability." 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  329 

Reply  to  the  question :  Can  a  man  will  ?  It  may  mean,  Be- 
sides and  above  the  will,  is  there  a  can  ?  Ans.  No ;  this  is  voli- 
tion before  volition.  It  may  mean,  Can  a  man  will  under  the 
appropriate  circumstances  ? l  Ans.  Yea. 

§  2.   The  Power  to  the  Contrary. 

This  phrase  is  sometimes  used  to  mean  the  same  as  natural 
ability.  It  is  sometimes  employed  to  designate  a  distinct  power 
from  that  which  is  actually  exerted,  and  such  power  is  regarded  as 
that  which  constitutes  the  freedom  of  the  will.  But  this  can- 
not be.  There  is  only  one  indivisible  power  of  choice,  and  the 
power  to  the  contrary  is  simply  that  power  of  choice  viewed  in 
relation  to  something  which  is  not  chosen,  but  which  might 
have  been,  had  the  person  preferred.  If  the  will  is  put  on  one 
object,  it  is  metaphysically  implied  that  tJie  will — the  same  will, 
not  a  distinct  power — might  have  been  put  on  a  different  object. 

In  relation  to  moral  action  or  agency,  the  term  natural  ability 
is  better  suited  than  that  of  the  power  to  the  contrary  choice, 
to  express  the  real  facts  of  the  case.  It  is  a  matter  of  consequence 
here,  what  our  words  are:  a  difference  in  phraseology  may  cause 
the  widest  difference  in  our  mode  of  apprehending  the  facts. 
The  reason  of  using  the  phrase,  natural  ability,  rather  than  the 
simple  general  phrase,  free  agency,  was,  the  reference  and  con- 
trast in  the  former  to  moral  inability.  It  is  a  phrase  which  states 
one  of  the  facts  iirith  reference  to  the  other,  which  is  what  we 
must  do  in  all  discussion  of  the  subject  before  us. 

The  Difference  between  Natural  Ability  and  Power  to  the 
Contrary : 

1.  Natural  ability,  the  power  of  choice,  is  exercised  in  every 
act — not  the  whole  natural  ability,  but  the  capacities  according 
to  the  degree  of  them  which  is  demanded — while  the  power  to 
the  contrary  is  never  exercised.  It  cannot  be.  As  soon  as  it  is 
exercised,  it  is  not  the  power  to  the  contrary,  but  the  power 

1  "If  by  liberty  be  meant  a  power  of  willing  and  choosing,  as  exemption  from 
co-action  and  natural  necessity,  and  power,  opportunity,  and  advantage  to  execute 
our  own  choice ;  in  this  sense  we  hold  liberty  "  (Dr.  Edwards,  Reply  to  Dr.  West, 
Works,  i.  326).  [But  with  the  author,  "appropriate  circumstances"  means  more 
than  this,  it  includes  "  willingness  "  in  the  deeper  sense.] 


330  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

which  is  put  forth.     It  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  to  suppose  it 
actually  exercised. 

2.  The  assumption  of  a  specific  power  to  the  contrary  can- 
not help  us  in  explaining  any  acts  of  actual  choice.     It  is  said : 
Adam  could  not  have  sinned  or  repented,  unless  he  had   thu 
power  to  the  contrary.     It  is  true,   so  far  as  this:   unless  ho 
could  have  willed  differently  from  what  he  did,  he  could  not 
have  sinned ;  but  he  did  not  use  the  power  to  the  contrary,  he 
left  it  behind.     So  when  a  sinner  repents,  he  does  not  use  the 
power  to  the  contrary.1     We  mean  by  natural  ability,  or  free 
agency,  all  the  faculties  of  a  moral  agent,  including  the  power 
of  choice,  whereby  the  possibility  of  another  than  the  actual 
choice  is  always  given.     But  no  new  faculties,  no  new  power  of 
choice,  no  power  hitherto  unexercised,  is  necessary,  in  order  to 
a  different  result.     It  is  a  new  choice,  i.  e.,  a  new  exertion  of  the 
one  indivisible  power  of  choice,  that  is  alone  requisite. 

3.  The  word  power,  as  used  in  the  phrase,  "power  to  the  con- 
trary," is  indefinite.     It  is  sometimes  used  as  though  "power" 
were  a  simple  ultimate  idea.    But  that  which  is  simple  is  "  choice  " ; 
power  has  a  variety  of  modifications.     The  Greek  language  gives 
this  distinction  in  dvvants  and  tvepyeia.:  the  first  is  potential 
power,  the  second  is  power  in  act,  power  exerted.     Now  the 
word,  power,  in  "  power  to  the  contrary,"  means  and  must  mean, 
that  which  is  potential,  a  possibility  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
the  cause.     It  can  never  mean,  the  power  exerted.     There  is  a 
difference  between  possibility  and  power:  one  is  that  which 
may  be,  the  other  is  that  which  not  only  may  be,  but  is,  and  is 
put  forth.2     As  far  as  power  of  choice  goes,  which  must  be  ex- 
erted in  repentance,  the  sinner  has  it,  and  so  has  the  possibility 
of  coming  into  a  different  moral  state,  and  if  he  had  not  that 
power,  he  could  not  be  brought  into  a  state  of  repentance.     But 

1  He  uses  the  same  power  that  he  formerly  used  in  his  course  of  impenitence, 
but  in  a  different  way,  on  different  objects.  The  contention  is  against  the  exist- 
ence of  any  power  to  the  contrary  distinct  from  the  power  which  is  used. 

'["The  most  elaborate  of  the  Aristotelian  distinctions  is  that  between  power 
in  possibility  and  power  in  act.  Man  (in  potentia)  may  be  viewed  as  a  possible 
cause  of  either  of  several  effects;  but  to  pass  from  power  to  action  requires  othei 
conditions  or  causes,  which  help  to  constitute  the  effect"  (Faith  and  Philosophy 
p.  372}.] 


ANTECEDENTS     OF    REDEMPTION.  331 

the  result  depends  upon  something  more  than  the  power  of 
choice;  it  depends  also  upon  the  motive,  the  end  or  object  of  the 
choice.  There  must  not  only  be  the  efficient  cause,  but  the  oc- 
casional and  final  cause.1  So  that  all  that  the  result  depends 
upon  is  not  given  in  the  power  of  choice,  although  an  essential 
element  of  it  is  given. 

To  say,  that  a  man  can  repent,  actually  do  so,  without  grace, 
is  contrary  to  experience,  to  the  Scriptures,  to  the  certainty  of 
his  sinning  until  regeneration, — to  his  moral  inability.  To 
grant  him  all  the  faculties  and  powers,  including  choice,  as 
possibilities,  in  respect  to  repentance,  is  consistent  with  these — 
and  with  the  facts  of  the  case. 

§  3.  The  positive  Statements  as  to  the  Eelation  of  Natural  Ability 
and  Moral  Inability. 

The  First  Proposition.  Though  the  sinner  has  the  natural 
ability  (in  the  sense  assigned)  to  repent  and  believe,  yet,  on  ac- 
count of  his  depravity,  for  the  exercise  of  that  ability,  he  is  de- 
pendent on  divine  grace.  The  whole  simple  truth  is  contained 
in  what  the  Apostle  Paul  says,  Rom.  vii.  18,  taking  his  statement 
in  a  strict  metaphysical  sense:  "To  will  is  present  with  me  but 
[how]  to  perform  [I  find]  is  not."  This,  with  the  context,  gives 
the  facts  of  the  case,  in  a  way  to  reconcile  the  two  truths  of 
moral  inability  and  natural  ability.  It  assigns  the  ground  of  the 
non-exercise;  i.  e.,  depravity.  That  is  the  reason,  and  the  only 
reason,  why  his  natural  ability  will  not  be  exerted.  The  ground 
is  not  put  in  a  want  of  capacity,  or  of  natural  power  of  the  will; 
but  it  is  put  where  it  belongs — viz.,  in  the  depravity.  That  is 
the  only  hindrance,  but  that  is  an  effectual  hindrance  to  repent- 
ing, without  grace.  The  Apostle  does  not  say,  merely,  that  it 
is  certain  that  he  will  not  exercise  his  natural  ability,  nor  simply 

1  President  Day:  "A  man  may  have  some  power,  but  not  alt  power;  that  is, 

he  may  not  have  all  that  on  which  the  result  depends If  the  word 

power  be  used  in  its  broadest  sense,  as  including  not  only  opportunity,  knowl- 
edge, capacity,  but  motives  of  all  kinds,  it  is  not  true  that  a  man  has  always 
equal  power  to  opposite  volitions."— The  term,  power,  is  simple,  but  for  the 
exercise  of  it  we  need  other  conditions  than  its  existence.  These  two  points 
RTA  often  confounded. 


332  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

that  he  "will"  not  exert  it:  but  he  gives  the  ground  and  reason 
of  the  certainty  that  he  will  not.  Moreover  it  is  not  "a  gra- 
cious ability"  which  is  conferred  when  repentance  occurs,  but 
the  simple  fact  is,  that  an  ability  is  exercised  through  grace,- — 
with  divine  aid.  The  passage  agrees  with  the  explanations 
commonly  given  of  "power  to  the  contrary,"  viz.,  "can  but  will 
not,"  but  it  also  gives  the  grounds  of  the  will  not. 

And  this  also  suggests  the  real  point  of  inquiry  and  doubt,  in 
respect  to  some  of  the  misapplications  and  misunderstandings  of 
the  theory  of  natural  ability — and  shows  its  limitations.  It  is 
asked,  What  is  ability,  but  a  power  which  may  be  exerted? 
True:  it  may  be:  it  is  possible;  and  the  having  this  power 
is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  position  that  it  can  only  be 
exerted  under  certain  conditions,  and  if  the  hindrance  is  a 
sinful  one,  with  our  responsibility  for  the  non-exertion.  To 
illustrate.  "God  cannot  lie";  the  meaning  is.  He  cannot  ac- 
tually do  it;  there  is  only  an  abstract,  metaphysical,  not  a 
real,  possibility. 

Why  we  assert  natural  ability:  Otherwise  there  is  no  obli- 
gation, nor  even  possibility  of  change  of  character.  This  will 
appear  from 

The  Second  Proposition:  There  is  no  sufficient  ground  for 
going  further  and  saying  positively,  that  a  totally  depraved 
being  has  sufficient  power  to  repent,  without  divine  aid.  That 
would  be  to  assert  the  possession  of  power  in  the  second  sense, 
in  the  sense  of  what  one  can  actually  do,  in  his  condition,  with- 
out God. 

1.  This  is  a  position  which   can   never  be  proved  by  in- 
duction; there  are  no  facts  on  which  it  can  be  based:  at  the 
best  it  is  but  a  metaphysical   proposition.     The   facts  of  the 
case,  the  consciousness  pleaded  in  the  case,  reaches  no  further 
than  to  the  possibility  of  the  act:  it  does,  in  our  judgment, 
reach  to  that  point,  but  not  beyond — not  to  the  position  that 
man,  in  his  state,  without   divine  aid,   can  really,  fully,  and 
truly  turn  to  God. 

2.  Nor  does  the  argument  from  obligation  reach  any  further 


ANTECEDENTS     OF     REDEMPTION.  333 

than  our  statement.1  The  argument  from  obligation  is,  "  I  ought, 
therefore  I  can."  Whence  is  the  ought  in  the  case  ?  It  is  based 
on  a  sense  of  right,  of  duty,  which  is  the  simple  utterance  of  con- 
science. It  is  my  duty:  hence  I  ought  to  do  it.  This  is  primi- 
tive and  simple.  The  "  ought"  is  not  primarily  dependent  on 
the  "can,"  but  precedes  it.  The  feeling  of  obligation  is  the  first 
and  simplest.  But  it  is  said:  "I  ought,  therefore  I  can:"  the 
ability  is  the  condition,  though  not  the  ground  of  the  obligation. 
True  so  far  as  this,  that  the  ought  cannot  exceed  the  measure 
of  the  natural  ability — all  the  heart  and  soul  and  rnind  and 
strength.  But  it  is  a  different  thing  to  say,  "  I  ought,  therefore 
I  can — actually — do  it."  For  there  is  a  hindrance,  in  the  sinful 
self;  and  that  is  not  a  natural,  but  a  moral  hindrance,  one  for 
which  I  am  guilty  and  responsible. 

3.  Nor  does  the  command  of  Repentance  imply  more  than 
our  first  proposition.  "  Man  is  bound  to  repent,  therefore  he  can 
repent."  Here  we  have  the  "  ought "  and  the  "  can  "  brought 
under  the  point  of  view  of  Repentance.  Avoiding  the  ambi- 
guity in  the  word  "can,"  we  reach  the  same  result  as  before, 
(a.)  It  may  be  remembered  that  there  is  no  evidence  that  the 
command  to  repent  is  ever  actually  given  except  in  a  system  in 
which  divine  aids  are  also  given.  But  we  do  not  insist  upon 
this,  since  repentance  is  obligatory  in  any  case.  But  we  say, 
(b.)  The  command  of  repentance  is  also  one  on  a  level  with  man's 
natural  ability.  Man  can — if  he  will.  He  has  the  power  of  choice, 
the  capacity  of  choice,  and  that  is  the  condition  of  the  possibil- 
ity2 of  his  repentance.  The  hindrance  is  precisely  as  before, 
yet  it  is  a  real  hindrance  to  actual  obedience.  Objections:  "  God 
commands  us  to  repent  actually,  does  He  not  ?  " — Yes.  "  There- 
fore we  can  actually  repent,  can  we  not?"3  Still  as  before 
say,  Yes,  we  have  the  natural  ability  actually  to  repent,  and 
what  prevents  us  from  doing  it  is  our  own  evil  hearts,  but 
that  does  prevent.  *'  Is  a  man  responsible  for  not  obeying  the 
command  to  repent  ?  "  Yes,  because  the  reason  for  not  obeying 

1  Mtiller:  "  Ich  sollte  freilich  kb'nnen,  aber  ich  kann  nicht." 

*  — condition  in  which  there  is  the  possibility — 

s  [Hints  probably  of  answers  to  questions  put  by  students  in  the  class-room,] 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  simply  our  preference  for  sin.  And  this  is  a  final  statement, 
we  cannot  get  beyond  it.  "  What  is  the  sense  of  the  phrase, 
*  he  can  if  he  will ?  "  "  Can  the  sinner  repent — if  he  will  ?  "  Yes, 
if  he  choose  to  do  so.  He  can — if  he  will :  the  actual  exercise  of 
the  will,  as  power  of  choice,  is  necessary  to  the  volition:  the 
doing  is  dependent  on  the  willing.  "  Is  it  the  same  as  when  we 
say,  a  bird  can  sing — if  it  will  ?"  No;  there  is  no  comparison  to 
be  made  between  the  cases;  the  bird  has  not  the  faculty  of  Will, 
it  is  not  a  moral  agent  with  such  a  faculty. 

The  Third  Proposition.  The  position  that  a  sinful,  depraved 
being  can  actually  repent  without  grace,  involves  us,  when 
carried  out  strictly,  in  inextricable  difficulties. 

1.  This  position  sunders  in  form  of  statement,  what  is  always 
united  in  fact — viz.,  the  divine  and  human  co working  in  all  our 
religious  acts.1     Here  the  two  factors  are  sundered,  and  then 
the  result  is  supposed  to  be  achieved  by  one.     In  actual  human 
experience,  there  never  has  been  such  a  state  as  religion  with- 
out grace.     Those  who  take  the  bold  ground  here  do  it  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  sense  in  which  they  say  that  God  can  sin.     The 
doctrine  of  power  to  the  contrary  is  applied  in  a  parallel  way  in 
the  two  cases.     And  we  suppose  it  is  just  as  true  that  a  man 
can  repent  without  grace,  as  that  God  can  sin,  and  no  more  true. 
It  is  a  bare  metaphysical  possibility  given  in  the  power  of 
choosing. 

2.  Let  us  carry  out  the  supposition  for  a  moment,  arid  make 
the   hypothesis   that   a   person  repents  without   divine   grace. 
What  is  the  resultant  state  of  mind?     Kepentauce  is  turning  to 
God,  and  supposes  the  divine  presence,  but  by  the  supposition, 
God  is  not  really  present  in  the  act.     All  that  the   act   can 
amount  to  is  this:  I  have  an  intellectual  conception  or  idea 
of  God,  and  I  love  or  turn  to  that.     It  is  an  abstract  love  to  an 
abstract  idea.     It  is  not  a  religious  reality. 

3.  The  position  is  consistent  only  with  the  supposition  of 
the  self-determining  power  of  the  will. 

1  On  this  all  religion  depends.     It  is  this  which  gives  the  distinction  between 
Religion  and  Morals.     A  religious  state  is  one  in  which  a  divine  influence  is  felt 


ANTECEDENTS    OP    REDEMPTION.  335 

4.  It  implies  self-regeneration,  because  wherever  there  is 
repentance  there  is  a  regeneration  of  the  soul.  The  soul  is 
renewed  in  and  by  repentance. 

The  Fourth  Proposition.  The  Scriptures  always  conjoin  the 
two  truths  of  natural  ability  and  moral  inability,  and  they 
should  be  conjoined  in  all  preaching.  Neither  by  itself  is  the 
truth :  both  are  the  truth.  The  great  thing  is  to  keep  the  two  truths 
together.  Matt.  iii.  2;  Phil.  ii.  12,  13;  John  vi.  44;  xv.  5;  Jer. 
xiii.  23;  Rom.  vii.  18;  Rom.  viii.  7,  8;  Gal.  iii.  21.  The  Scriptures 
give  the  truth  in  a  concrete  form.  God  is  there  addressing  man. 
The  relation  of  dependence,  of  mutual  activity,  is  presupposed. 
They  do  not  contemplate  man  as  sundered  from  divine  influence, 
except  by  sin.  The  most  characteristic  invitations,  Matt.  xii.  20 ; 
John  vii.  37 ;  Isa.  Iv.  1,  2 ;  on  the  face  of  them,  imply  grace  pro- 
vided. The  Scriptures  do  not  know  of  any  repentance,  except 
through  and  by  divine  graced  The  power  which  the  gospel 
sets  over  against  the  mighty  power  of  sin,  is  not  the  might 
of  our  own  wills,  but  the  power  of  God's  grace  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

As  to  Preaching:  The  best  and  the  only  real  preaching  is  that 
which  connects  the  two  truths,  natural  ability  and  moral  in- 
ability. The  one  cannot  be  set  forth  truly  without  the  other. 
If  natural  ability  is  preached  without  moral  inability,  then  the 
natural  ability  in  its  true  sense  is  not  preached,  and  vice  versa. 
Wherever  the  duty  is  insisted  on  without  the  grace,  or  the  grace 
without  the  duty,  we  are  sure  to  go  wrong.  The  best  preaching 
combines — sovereignty,  depravity,  and  natural  ability:  all  other 
is  jejune  and  bald.  The  practicability  of  immediate  repentance  can- 
not be  urged  on  any  other  ground  than  the  two  conjoined :  power 
of  choice  and  grace  offered.  The  question  is  not,  Shall  the  sin- 
ner be  exhorted  to  immediate  repentance,  but — on  what  grounds? 
Not — Has  the  sinner  power  of  choice  ?  but — As  to  the  way  of 
using  that  power.  The  obligation  is  urgent,  the  duty  is  full, — 
how  do  it  ?  The  answer:  Grace  is  offered  in  Christ.  Immediate 
repentance  is  always  to  be  urged  on  the  ground  of  the  two  com- 
bined; the  power  of  choice  giving  the  possibility,  and  grace  cf- 


336  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

f'ered  giving  encouragement;  the  duty  which  springs  from  man's 
capacities  and  relation  to  God,  the  obligation  which  binds  the 
soul  while  its  being  lasts:  man's  helplessness  in  himself,  his 
need  of  divine  grace,  and  that  grace  offered  in  Christ.  The  two 
are  the  perpetual  complements  of  each  other.  Such  preach- 
ing  has  been  the  source  of  revivals  in  this  country,  in  their 
best  form.  Even  in  the  acutest  essay  to  vindicate  full  natural 
ability  which  we  have,1  when  the  author  brings  the  sinner  to 
the  point  where  he  suspends  his  self-love,  he  makes  the  Holy 
Spirit  come  in  and  guide,  in  order  to  make  effectual  the  choice. 
And  so  it  must  be  always,  in  order  to  the  renewal  of  the  soul. 
In  fact,  the  most  strenuous  advocates  of  unlimited  ability  say 
that  they  preach  ability  so  that  a  man  may  feel  his  duty,  try  to 
perform  it,  find  he  cannot  really  do  it — so  hard  is  his  heart — 
and  then  be  led  to  accept  the  grace  offered.  But  they  might  as 

well  make  the  conclusion  a  part  of  the  theory. 

t 

Summary.     The  great  practical  points. 

1.  Man  has  all  the  powers — perfectly  so,  which  are  necessary 
to  moral  agency. 

2.  All  the  inability  he  is  under  is  a  sinful  inability.     This  is 
an  unwillingness,  which  is  not  merely  an  act  of  the  will  or  a 
lack  of  action,  but  is  also  a  state  of  the  will,  constituting  a  real 
and  sufficient  obstacle  to  his  actually  doing  right. 

3.  He  has  the  ability  in  will  as  the  power  of  choice,  to  ac- 
cept or  reject  the  grace  offered  to  him,  to  obey  or  disobey  the 
calls, — has  the  efficiency,  though  not  the  sufficiency. 

4.  He  is  under  obligation  to  immediate  repentance:  he  ought 
at  once  to  repent  and  turn  to  God. 

5.  Under  the  offer  of  the  gospel  and  the  command  of  God, 
lie  may  comply;  no  man  can  say  that  he  has  not  enough  of  the 
influences. 

6.  This  ability  is  not  gracious   merely;  it  is  primarily  iu 
man's    will    as    power    of    choice:    so    that    to    refuse   is    the 
greater  sin. 

1  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor's  in  Christian  SpecUtor. 


ANTECEDENTS    OF    REDEMPTION.  337 


CONCLUSION  OF  THE  FIRST  DIVISION   OF  THEOLOGY: 
THE  ANTECEDENTS  OF  REDEMPTION. 

We  have  considered  The  Being  and  Attributes  of  God;  hia 
Works,  his  End  in  Creation;  Man  as  made  for  God,  as  having 
endowments  to  carry  out  and  promote  God's  great  end  in  crea- 
tion; Man  as  fallen,  as  lying  under  and  exposed  to  the  penalties 
for  sin,  and  as  involved  in  the  bondage  of  sin.  There  remains  to 
be  considered:  The  Possibility  of  Redemption,  notwithstanding 
the  sinful,  guilty  condition  of  mankind.  [This  was  not  treated 
by  the  author.]  The  possibility  on  God's  side  is  found  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  has  been  considered, — opening  to 
our  view  personal  distinctions  in  the  Godhead,  through  which 
the  Incarnation  and  the  Redemption  may  become  actual.  The 
possibility  on  man's  side  consists:  (1)  In  the  divine  image  re- 
maining in  him,  in  his  natural  capacities  and  powers,  and  his 
immortal  destiny:  the  groundwork  of  his  nature,  as  a  moral, 
spiritual,  immortal  being,  remains.  (2)  In  the  capacity  yet  re- 
maining to  him,  of  receiving  divine  influences,  whereby  he  may 
be  restored. 


DIVISION    SECOND. 

THE  REDEMPTION  ITSELF.      THE  PERSON  AND 
WORK  OF  CHRIST. 


DIVISION     SECOND. 

THE    REDEMPTION   ITSELF.     THE   PERSON  AND 
WORK    OF   CHEIST. 

We  enter  here  upon  the  Second  General  Division  of  the 
System  of  Christian  Theology,  which  is  also  the  center  and 
key-stone  of  the  whole.  The  central  idea  to  which  all  the 
parts  of  theology  are  to  be  referred,  and  by  which  the  system 
is  to  be  made  a  system,  or  to  be  constructed,  is  what  we  have 
termed  the  Christological  or  Mediatorial  idea,  viz.,  that  God 
was  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.  This  idea  is 
central,1  not  in  the  sense  that  all  the  other  parts  of  theology  are 
logically  deduced  from  it,  but  rather  that  they  center  in  it.  The 
idea  is,  that  of  an  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption.  This 
is  the  central  idea  of  Christianity,  as  distinguished,  or  distin- 
guishable, from  all  other  religions,  and  from  all  forms  of  phi- 
losophy; and  by  this,  and  this  alone,  are  we  able  to  construct 
the  whole  system  of  the  Christian  faith  on  its  proper  grounds. 
This  idea  is  the  proper  center  of  unity  to  the  whole  Christian 
system,  as  the  soul  is  the  center  of  unity  to  the  body,  as  tho 
North  Pole  is  to  all  the  magnetic  needles.  It  is  so  really  the 
center  of  unity  that  when  we  analyze  and  grasp  and  apply  it, 
we  find  that  the  whole  of  Christian  theology  is  in  it.  Thus:  tho 
analysis  of  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption  presupposes  the 
doctrine  respecting  the  divine  nature,  the  end  of  God  irx  hia 
works,  the  nature  of  man,  and  the  condition  of  man  as  sinful 
and  this  comprised  the  first  division  of  theology — The  Ant  /> 
dents  of  Redemption.  The  same  principle,  in  its  concrete  U',  ty 
gives  us  the  doctrines  respecting  the  Person  and  Work  of  f-hf  1st, 
which  make  up  this,  our  second  division  of  the  system.  And 
the  same  principle,  in  its  applications,  gives  us  the  third  division 

1  [See  Introductioii  to  Christian  Theology,  p.  58.  J 


342  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

of  the  system,  embracing  regeneration,  justification,  sanctifica- 
tion,  the  doctrine  respecting  the  church  and  the  sacraments, 
and  the  eschatology. 

The  general  scheme  for  the  Second  Division: — 

PART  L— The  Incarnation  in  its  general  nature  and  objects:  on  Scriptural, 
historical,  and  philosophical  grounds. 

PART  II.— Of  the  person  of  the  Mediator:  God  manifest  in  the  flesh. 

PART  IIL—  Of  the  work  of  the  Mediator:  in  His  three  offices  of  Prophet,  Priest 
and  King. 


PART     I, 


OF  THE  INCARNATION  IN  ITS  GENERAL  NATURE  AND 

OBJECTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

WHAT    IS      PRESUPPOSED    IN    THE    INCARNATION. 

Two  things  are  presupposed :  viz. — the  fact  of  sin,  and  such 
a  constitution  of  the  Godhead  as  makes  the  incarnation  possi 
ble.1  These  we  have  already  considered.  In  order  to  redeem 
man  from  sin,  an  incarnate  Redeemer,  one  divine  in  Himself, 
having  our  nature  and  bearing  our  sins,  was  needed.  (uCur 
Deue  Homo  ?  "  Why  the  God-man  ?) 

§  1.   Of  the  Incarnation  in  Relation  to  Sin. 

We  do  not  mean  that  we  can  say  that  only  through  an  in- 
carnation our  deliverance  could  be  effected.  But  we  can  say 
these  things:  (1)  That  such  a  being,  one  having  the  divine  and 
the  human  nature,  is  eminently  adapted  to  this  work.  (2)  That 
no  one  can  prove  that  any  other  being  could  have  performed 
such  a  superhuman  work.  (3)  That  there  is  a  more  perfect  con- 
gruity  between  such  a  person  and  such  a  work,  than  between 
such  a  work  and  any  other  person  that  we  can  conceive  to  exist 
And  we  may  add  (4),  that  on  the  inductive  method  of  reason- 
ing from  facts  to  principles,  if  it  be  proved  historically  that  such 
a  being  has  appeared,  in  the  divine  administration,  for  such  a 
work,  it  is  a  rational  conclusion  that  such  a  being  was  needed 

'[There  is  a  third  point,— such  a  constitution  of  human  nature  as  makes  the 
Incarnation  possible,  which  is  considered  incidentally.  The  author  did  not  deny 
the  position  of  certain  eminent  German  theologians:  that  God  and  man  are  to  be 
viewed  as  "capable  of  each  other,"  but  he  would  not  affirm  it  as  the  leading 
position  in  CLristology.  He  prefers  to  view  the  Incarnation  always  in  its  relation 

tort*.] 


344  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

for  the  work.  God  does  nothing  in  vain.  Such  a  manifestation 
of  glory  and  suffering,  of  glory  in  suffering,  would  not  have 
been,  unless  a  necessity  for  it — at  least  a  moral,  if  not  a  phys- 
ical or  natural,  necessity  had  existed. 

Over  against  the  sin  of  the  world,  to  redeem  men  from  it,  the 
God-man  appeared.  This  is  his  position.  The  fact  of  sin  made 
it  necessary,  in  the  above  sense,  that  he  should  appear  for  this 
object. 

And  in  relation  to  the  human  race,  He  is  the  second  Adam, 
the  Lord  from  heaven.  He  assumes  the  same  position  in  re- 
spect to  the  human  race  as  to  its  redemption  from  sin  and  to 
eternal  life,  that  the  first  Adam  did  as  to  sin  and  death.  This 
is  clearly  and  fully  put  by  the  Apostle  Paul,  1  Cor.  xv.  46- 
49^ — a  wonderful  passage  :  life  from  Christ  as  death  from 
Adam,  spirit  from  Christ  as  soul  from  Adam.  The  parallel  is 
complete:  the  headship  of  Christ  in  relation  to  redemption  is 
set  over  against  the  headship  of  Adam  in  relation  to  sin.  We 
may  with  advantage  make  some  fuller  statements  here  upon  this 
important  point.  We  can  have  from  this  position  the  best  sur- 
vey of  theology;  in  retrospect  as  to  what  we  have  considered — 
under  the  headship  of  Adam,  and  in  prospect  of  what  is  before 
us — under  the  headship  of  Christ. 

FULLER  STATEMENT  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  Two  HEADSHIPS. 

In  the  Scriptures,  especially  in  the  two  passages,  Rom.  v. 
12-21,  and  1  Cor.  xv.  45,  47,  two  contrasted  economies,  making 
one  divine  plan,  are  presented  to  us.  On  the  one  hand  is  sin 
and  death,  and  on  the  other  hand,  righteousness  and  life.  Sin 
and  death  come  to  the  human  race  from  one  man — the  first 
Adam :  righteousness  and  life  also  come  to  the  race  from  one, 
that  is,  Jesus  Christ.  Condemnation  is  by  the  first,  Justifica- 
tion is  by  the  second :  we  are  involved  in  death  by  the  former, 
and  we  obtain  resurrection  and  the  reigning  in  life  by  the  other, 
that  is,  by  Jesus  Christ. 

In  these  positions  is  disclosed  the  grand  and  striking  peculi- 

1  Compare  on  this:  the  relation  to  Philo,  and  the  difference  between  Paul  and 
Philo,  "  Jour.  Class,  and  Sac.  Philology,"  No.  1,  1854 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  345 

arity  of  the  Scriptural  mode  of  viewing  human  nature  and  hu- 
man destiny  in  relation  to  God.  It  is  precisely  here,  on  this 
point,  in  this  way  of  summing  up  and  stating  the  matter,  that 
the  Gospel  of  Christ  is  distinguished  from  all  other  schemes  and 
systems,  from  all  theories  and  speculations  of  merely  human 
origin,  from  any  merely  physical  or  moral  system,  that  proposes 
to  explain  the  facts,  and  to  forecast  the  destiny  of  the  race.  It 
is  in  the  contrasted  headship  of  the  first  and  of  the  second  Adam. 
For  the  whole  Scriptural  doctrine  of  sin  runs  back  into  our  nat- 
ural union  with  the  first  Adam  by  descent;  the  whole  Scriptural 
doctrine  of  righteousness  runs  back  into  our  vital  union  with 
the  second  Adam,  which  is  not  of  nature  but  by  grace. 

I. — The  Scriptural  view  of  the  relation  of  the  race  to  the  first 
Adam,  is  at  once  simple  and  complete. 

1.  The  human  race  is  not  a  mere  aggregate  of  units,  but 
rather  a  physical  arid  moral  unity.     There  is  one  family  of  man 
it  is  made  up  of  individuals,  each  one  having  his  personal  rights 
and  personal  responsibilities;  but  these  separate  individuals  are 
also  bound  together,  by  the  inflexible  law  of  a  common  descent; 
and  the  unity  is  as  real  as  the  individuality;  in  fact,  the  generic, 
in  plan  and  in  idea,  precedes  the  individual.     It  is  not  meant, 
or  implied,  in  this,  that  there  is  any  mystical  identity  of  sub- 
stance; but  only  a  real  unity,  made  by  the  law  of  propagation 
and  descent,  so  that  we  are  all  truly  the  children  of  the  first 
Adam,  and  have  part  and  lot  in  his  inheritance. 

2.  On  the  basis  of  this  physical  unity  of  the  race,  the  Script- 
ures still  further  teach  us,  that  there  is  also  a  moral  unity.     The 
union  comes  under  the  rubric  of  moral  government,  as  well  as 
under  the  caption  of  physical  connection.     In  other  words,  in 
the  technical  language  of  theology — which   is   a   convenient, 
though  not  the  only,  form  of  stating  the  truth, — Adam  was  con. 
stituted  the  federal,  as  well  as  the  natural,  head  of  the  human 
race.     In  some  way,  as  a  matter-of-fact,  if  not  of  formal  cove- 
nant,1 he  stood  for  us,  as  our  repiesentative,  so  that  what  he  did 
might  be,  and  was,  made   over  to  his  descendants,  involving 
them  in  the  consequences,  whether  of  advantage  or  of  liability,; 

1  It  was  more  than  a  c<  veiiant — a  "charter,"  v.  supra. 


346  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

of  his  act.  And  this  was  not  merely  a  physical  sequence,  a 
matter  of  divine  sovereignty  alone:  it  is  also  represented  as  a 
moral,  even  as  a  judicial  process,  in  terms  too  distinct  to  be 
evaded.  "As  by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world  and  death 
by  sin,  and  so  death  passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  [or,  as  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that]  all  have  sinned;"  "through  the  offence  of 
one  many  be  dead;"  "by  one  man's  oifence  death  reigned  by 
one;"  "by  the  offence  of  one,  judgment  came  upon  all  men  to 
condemnation ; "  "  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were  made 
[constituted]  sinners."  If  these  statements  do  not  imply  a  moral 
union  and  dependence,  a  relation  not  physical,  but  judicial,  it  is 
hardly  possible  for  language  to  do  so.  In  the  technical  language 
of  theology,  this  is  represented  as  the  imputation  of  Adam's  first 
sin  to  his  posterity,  that  is,  as  reckoning  to  their  account  the 
penal  consequences  of  his  transgression.  We  sinned  in  him  and 
fell  with  him — not  as  personally  present,  but  through  our  com- 
munity of  nature.1 

3.  But  we  are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  fact  itself,  that  in 
consequence  of  Adam's  sin  we  come  into  the  world  in  a  state  of 
ein  and  death,  and  liable  to  penal  evils  here  and  hereafter,  un- 
less divine  grace  intervene.  Here  is  doubtless  a  great,  an  awe- 
inspiring  mystery:  but,  as  Pascal  intimates,  though  it  is  a  great 
enigma,  yet  the  enigma  of  man's  life  would  be  still  greater,  and 
still  more  insoluble,  if  this  were  not  so.  What  we  assert  is,  that 
this  doctrine,  with  all  its  fearful  shadows,  is  still  only  the  read- 
ing and  rendering  of  the  facts  of  the  case:  it  is  not  a  mere  theory  to 
explain  the  facts,  it  is  the  facts  themselves  compendiously  summed 
up  and  stated.2  And  however  we  may  explain  the  fact  of  our  com- 

1  The  older  Hopkinsianism  of  New  England,  in  making  the  first  moral  act  of 
all  Adam's  descendants  to  be  "the  consent  to  Adam's  sin,"  was  immeasurably 
nearer  the  truth  than  the  more  modern  Hopkinsianism,  which  represents  our  first 
moral  act  to  be  simply  our  personal  violation  of  the  divine  law,  in  full  view  of  the 
consequences,  and  with  full  power  to  the  contrary. 

2  It  is  a  striking  fact,  that  the  profoundest  infidelity  of  the  age  has  swept  round 
on  this  point  to  the  substance  of  the  orthodox  view,— substituting  fate  for  God. 
Materialism  confesses  that  man  is  by  nature  engrossed  in  sense  and  the  world, 
Pantheism  makes  original  sin  to  be  the  very  substance  of  human  nature.     Both 
systems  grant  the  fact  of  alienation  from  God,  aud  explain  it  by  denying  God. 
Christianity  in  addition  brings  the  facts  under  God's  moral  government,— making 
them  a  part  of  the  divine  plan  in  respect  to  the  human  race. 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  347 

raon  ruin  and  sinfulness,  it  meets  us  everywhere.  No  man's  con- 
scious experience  reaches  back  to  the  beginning  of  sin  within  him. 
When  we  wake  up  to  a  sense  of  our  moral  position,  it  is  always 
with  a  sense  of  sin,  and  never  of  innocence.  When  we  first 
know  the  law,  it  is  as  a  condemning  power.  We  cannot  think 
of  saving  ourselves  by  doing  the  deeds  of  the  law :  for  by  the 
deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh  living  be  justified.  Salvation 
cannot,  for  any  members  of  Adam's  race,  come  by  the  law.  The 
life  commended  to  our  choice  in  the  Bible  is  a  life  through  grace 
freely  offered.  We  find  ourselves  exposed  daily  to  penal  evils, 
from  our  youth  up :  and  the  very  infant  that  dies  before  moral 
agency  is  detected,  in  that  death  gives  evidence  to  the  sentence 
of  the  law,  and  confirms  the  Biblical  statement,  that  we  are  by 
nature  the  children  of  wrath.  And  with  this  agrees  the  pro- 
foundest  spiritual  experience  of  the  depth  and  nature  of  sin.  Its 
roots  run  deeper  than  our  volitions ;  actual  transgression  is  the 
offspring  of  original  sin.  The  exercises  of  the  will  only  reveal 
the  will's  immanent  state  and  inmost  preference.  That  which 
is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh ;  that  is,  our  native  state  is  a  sinful 
state;  and  the  renewing  and  sanctifying  Spirit  works  beneath 
the  sphere  of  direct  consciousness  and  volition,  and  gives  to 
the  regenerate  a  new  heart  and  a  right  spirit.  And  in  all  this 
work  it  is  not  of  him  that  willeth,  nor  of  him  that  runneth,  but 
of  God  that  showeth  mercy. 

Such  is  the  headship  of  Adam  in  relation  to  the  race,  entailing 
Bin  and  death  as  the  sad  consequence  of  the  great,  original  apostasy. 

II. — But  over  against  this  headship  of  Adam,  the  grace  of 
God  has  established  another  economy,  centering  in  another  cov- 
enant. The  headship  of  Christ  is  one  of  life  and  redemption,  as 
that  of  Adam  was  of  death  and  condemnation.  The  divine  plan 
of  redemption  from  the  evil  and  curse  of  sin  centers  in  the  Per- 
son and  Work  of  the  God-man,  Christ  Jesus.  The  purpose  of 
mercy  antedates  the  fact  of  sin:  for  He  is  the  Lamb  of  God, 
slain  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  He  is  the  head  over  all 
things  to  the  church.  There  is  (Col.  i.  19,  20)  an  intimate  re- 
lation between  Him  and  all  created  beings:  He  is  the  medium 
of  access  for  all  creatures  unto  their  heavenly  Father. 


348  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

And  this  headsl.ip  of  the  Lord  Jesus  is  on  every  point  par 
allel,  and  contrasted,  with  that  of  Adam.  What  Adam  is  in  re- 
lation to  sin  and  death,  that  Christ  is  in  relation  to  righteousness 
and  life.  By  man  came  death,  by  man  came  also  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead.  As  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall 
all  be  made  alive, — referring  here,  too,  to  the  resurrection.  The 
judgment  was  by  one  offence  to  condemnation,  the  free  gift  ia 
of  many  offences  unto  justification.  The  eternal  Son  of  God 
assumed  our  nature,  lived  in  it  his  sinless  life  and  in  it  died  his 
sacrificial  death:  there  is  that  which  is  human  in  the  second 
Adam  over  against  that  which  is  human  in  the  first;  there  is 
that  which  endures  and  stands  to  perfection  over  against  that 
which  falls  and  sinks  into  corruption;  there  is  that  which  ex- 
piates over  against  that  which  incurs ;  that  which  satisfies  divine 
justice  over  against  that  which  calls  it  forth;  that  which  pro- 
vides for  answering  the  demands  of  the  divine  law  in  respect 
to  the  whole  race  over  against  that  which  brought  the  whole 
race  under  the  penal  demands  of  that  law.  The  cross  of  Christ 
is  the  link  between  earth  and  heaven,  and  it  is  the  shield  be- 
tween earth  and  hell.  There  converge  and  commingle  the  rays 
of  the  divine  justice  and  of  the  divine  love — the  justice  and  the 
love  equally  satisfied — and  thence  emerge  all  these  rays  only  to 
bless  and  to  save.  There  the  dignity  of  a  divine  nature  imparts 
an  infinite  value  to  the  pangs  which  only  a  human  nature  could 
endure,  and  with  the  cry  "It  is  finished,"  the  second  Adam 
stands  forth  in  the  perfection  of  his  obedience  and  suffering,  in 
the  parallel  and  contrast  with  the  first. 

The  contrasted  parallel  between  the  first  and  the  second 
Adam  is  thus  complete  in  all  its  parts  and  relations.  The  first 
is  our  natural  head,  the  second  is  our  spiritual  head;  the  first 
brought  in  condemnation,  the  second,  justification;  the  first  in- 
volved us  in  spiritual  death,  the  second  is  the  author  of  spiritual 
life;  the  former  made  the  death  of  the  body  to  be  our  mortal 
heritage,  the  latter  makes  the  resurrection  of  the  body  to  be  our 
immortal  privilege;  the  first  alienates  from  God,  the  second 
reconciles  unto  God;  the  first  is  the  progenitor  and  head  of  our 
fallen  humanity,  the  second  is  the  source  and  head  of  our  re* 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  349 

newed  humanity;  from  the  former  we  receive  that  natural  life 
which  contains  the  seeds  of  death,  from  the  latter,  through  the 
Spirit,  we  receive  that  spiritual  life  which  is  the  ground  and 
pledge  of  our  eternal  felicity;  the  tie  that  unites  us  to  the  one 
is  that  of  natural  descent,  the  bond  that  allies  us  to  the  other  is 
a  union  no  less  real,  no  less  vital,  subsisting  through  faith,  and 
insuring  to  us  all  the  blessings  of  the  new  covenant :  for,  if  by 
one  man's  offence,  death  reigned  by  one,  much  more  they  which 
receive  abundance  of  grace  and  of  the  gift  of  righteousness  shall 
reign  in  life  by  one,  Jesus  Christ. 

Such,  set  over  against  one  another,  are  the  headship  of 
Adam  and  the  headship  of  Christ.  But  they  are  not  only  con- 
trasted with  each  other,  they  also  run  into  each  other.  We 
therefore  proceed  to  state, 

III. — That  the  two  form  one  system,  one  plan,  so  that  the 
one  cannot  be  understood  without  the  other.  The  two  togethei, 
and  not  either  by  itself,  embrace  the  purpose  of  God  in  respect 
to  the  human  race.  Human  nature  and  human  destiny  cannot 
be  explained  without  reference  to  both.  God's  government  of 
the  world  cannot  be  explained  except  as  including  both.  It 
would  else  be  like  explaining  the  orbit  of  a  planet  with  only  one 
focus.  God's  moral  government  has  the  two  foci  of  sin  and  of 
redemption.  It  would  else  be  like  trying  to  explain  the  course 
of  our  earth  without  both  the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  force: 
God's  moral  government  includes  the  centrifugal  power  of  sin 
as  well  as  the  centripetal  force  of  redemption. 

Here  is  found  the  mistake  of  many  theorizers  upon  the  moral 
government  of  God, — reducing  it  to  the  level  and  scope  of  their 
own  speculations.  It  is  very  easy  to  make  out  some  such  scheme 
with  a  few  simple  definitions, — and  then  to  substitute  the  defi- 
nitions for  the  facts.  But  the  facts  of  the  case  after  all  are  the 
solid  things.  Thus,  for  example,  it  is  easy  to  construct  a  sys- 
tem of  natural  ethics,  to  say  that  the  whole  of  God's  govern- 
ment is  by  a  simple  rule  or  law  of  right  with  its  appropriate 
sanctions,  of  reward  or  punishment.  But  this  position,  logically 
carried  out,  would  exclude  the  whole  system  of  redemption.  So, 
too,  it  is  easy  to  say,  that  the  divine  benevolence,  in  the  sense 


350  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

of  a  disposition  to  confer  happiness,  is  the  great  principle  of  all 
God's  acts  and  dealings;  but  this  reduces  holiness  to  a  means  of 
happiness,  and  resolves  the  atonement  into  a  mere  means  of 
moral  impression.  So,  too,  we  may  set  forth,  in  theory,  the 
whole  of  the  divine  influence  upon  man  as  a  mere  moral  suasion, 
like  that  of  man  on  man ;  but  in  doing  this  we  rob  regeneration 
of  its  vital  element.  Or  yet  again,  we  may  represent  our  whole 
relation  to  Adam  as  merely  natural  and  physical,  and  not  as 
moral  and  spiritual,  and  may  define  sin  as  consisting  merely  in 
personal  choices  and  volitions,  and  thus  rule  out,  by  definition, 
the  whole  doctrine  of  original  sin;  but  this  is  plainly  incompati- 
ble with  the  inspired  statement  that  by  one  offence  judgment 
came  upon  all  men  unto  condemnation :  and  what  we  may  seem  to 
gain  by  such  definitions  in  increasing  the  sense  of  personal  respon- 
sibility, is  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  loss  of  all  profounder 
views  of  the  depth  of  our  corruption,  and  of  the  absolute  necessity 
of  divine  grace  for  any  spiritual  good  accompanying  salvation.1 

But  the  evil  of  such  partial  theories  and  explanations  does 
not  end  here.  The  divine  plan  and  system  in  respect  to  both 
Adam  and  Christ  is  one  and  the  same  in  its  general  principles 
and  bearings.  The  headship  of  Adam  in  relation  to  sin,  and 
the  headship  of  Christ  in  relation  to  redemption,  stand  and  fall 
together.  Any  theory  which  excludes  the  former,  equally  ex- 
cludes the  latter,  if  logically  carried  out.  Or,  in  other  words — 
to  bring  the  matter  to  its  test  on  the  two  central  doctrines, 
where  both  headships  converge — the  doctrine  of  original  sin  and 
the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  stand  or  fall  together. 
If  we  give  up  the  one  we  cannot  save  the  other  in  its  essential 
integrity.  One  way  of  testing  the  truth  of  our  theories  of  sin  is 
to  see  whether  the  principles  of  our  theory  will  leave  justifica- 
tion by  faith  intact  and  complete,2  in  all  its  evangelical  grace 

1  It  has  been  said,  in  the  way  of  a  taunt  against  the  older  theology,  that  men  are 
very  willing  to  speculate  about  sinning  in  Adam,  so  as  to  have  their  attention  di- 
verted from  the  sense  of  personal  guilt.     But  the  whole  history  of  theolcgy  bears 
witness,  that  those  who  have  believed  most  fully  in  our  native  and  strictly  moral 
corruption— as  Augustine,  Calvin,  Edwards— have  ever  had  the  deepest  sense  of 
their  personal  demerit.     We  know  the  full  evil  of  sin  only  when  we  know  its  roota 
as  well  as  its  fruits. 

2  Yet  many  adhere  firmly  to  the  Scriptural  view  of  justification,  who  deny  all 
sin  but  actual  transgression. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  351 

and  fulness.  We  must  define  sin  and  holiness  by  parallel  and 
harmonious  formulas.  If  there  be  no  sin,  but  personal  ill-desert, 
there  cannot  be  any  holiness  but  personal  merit,  and  heaven  ia 
of  debt  and  not  of  grace.  If  there  can  be  no  condemnation  ex 
cepting  for  personal  choices  and  acts,  neither  can  there  be  any 
justification  excepting  for  personal  choices  and  acts.  If  Adam 
cannot  involve  us  in  sin  and  ruin,  neither  can  Christ  confer 
upon  us  righteousness  and  life.  If  the  sin  of  Adam  cannot  be 
imputed  to  us  for  our  condemnation,  neither  can  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ  be  imputed  to  us  for  our  salvation.  If  there  can- 
not be  a  headship  of  Adam  in  respect  to  our  natural  death,  there 
cannot  be  a  headship  of  Christ  in  respect  to  our  spiritual  life. 

But  if  we  take  such  positions,  how  contrasted  our  view  is  with 
that  divine  plan,  which  consists  not  in  theories  but  in  facts- 
facts  centering  in  persons  and  in  covenants,  which  may  not  be 
so  fully  and  clearly  grasped,  which  have  a  background  of  won- 
der and  mystery,  but  which  are  also  majestic  and  simple,  and 
give  us  fixed  points  and  centers  for  our  theology  and  our  faith. 
Here  on  the  one  hand  is  Adam,  made  originally  in  the  divine 
image,  the  head  of  the  human  family,  placed  in  the  garden  of 
Eden,  in  familiar  intercourse  with  his  Maker,  receiving  the  par- 
adisiacal command,  at  once  intelligible  and  fitted  to  his  condi- 
tion; appointed,  if  he  obeyed,  to  be  the  head  of  a  holy  society 
through  all  time;  condemned,  if  he  disobeyed,  to  return  to  the 
dust,  and  to  convey  to  those  who  were  to  come  from  his  loins 
the  same  death  in  sin  into  which  he  himself  plunged.  And 
over  against  him,  in  the  divine  plan  for  the  race,  is  the  God- 
man,  our  Saviour;  appointed  to  suffer  and  conquer  for  those 
who  were  involved  in  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  the  fall.  We  be- 
hold Him,  hanging  upon  the  cross,  his  head  crowned  with 
thorns,  his  hands  stretched  out^  upon  the  accursed  tree,  that 
He  might  both  suffer  and  save.  We  hear  his  dying  words  of 
unutterable  anguish,  in  their  very  sharpness  of  love  full  of  un- 
speakable blessings  for  our  lost  humanity:  his  dying  cry  is  the 
watchword  of  our  salvation. 

And  in  these  two  contrasted  forms,  we  read  the  sum  of  hu- 
man destiny — its  beginning,  its  center  and  its  eternal  issues;  ID 


352  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

these  two  we  see  the  whole  of  the  Law  and  the  whole  of  the 
Gospel,  the  whole  of  justice  and  the  whole  of  mercy,  blended  in 
one  system. 

§  2.  The  second  point  presupposed  by  the  Incarnation  is  suck 
a  constitution  of  the  divine  nature  as  made  an  Incarnation  possible. 

This  has  been  considered  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity :  we 
only  refer  to  it  here  by  way  of  completeness  of  systematic  view. 
This  constitution  is  that  of  the  existence  of  distinct  personal 
agencies  in  the  Godhead,  especially  of  the  Son  as  personally 
distinct  from  the  Father. 

Here  again,  we  would  not  say  that  an  Incarnation  was  pos- 
sible only  on  the  ground  of  the  essential  Trinity:  i.  e.,  by  a 
metaphysical  necessity:  for  that  we  do  not  quite  know.  Sa- 
bellianism  is  metaphysically  possible.  But  this  we  may  say: 
(1)  The  existence  of  such  personal  distinctions  in  the  Godhead 
is  most  congruous  with  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  with  the 
personal  distinction  of  Father  and  Son,  as  that  comes  out  in 
the  Incarnation.  For  that  such  a  personal  distinction  existed 
when  Christ  was  incarnate,  and  since  then — if  Christ  still  lives 
— cannot  be  denied.  Nor  can  it  be  shown  that  his  personality 
began  with  the  Incarnation.  The  contrary  can  be  proved.  (2) 
Any  other  view  makes  the  personality  of  Christ  at  least  to  seem 
ephemeral.  (3)  Passages  of  Scripture  take  for  granted  a  pre- 
existing personal  relationship.  Gal.  iv.  4;  John  iii.  16;  xvii.  5: 
xvii.  24;  xvi.  28.  (4)  We  gain  a  more  intelligible  view  of  the 
economy  of  redemption  on  the  basis  of  the  Trinity  than  on  any 
other.  We  see  the  different  offices  of  the  different  persons  in 
the  great  work:  and  all,  in  every  stage  and  part,  divine.1 

Such  are  the  two  chief  points  of  the  connection  of  the  Incar- 
nation with  the  whole  system  of  theology.  We  proceed  now 
to  consider  the  Incarnation  in  its  general  nature  and  objects. 

1  Pascal:  "If  the  world  subsisted  to  teach  men  of  the  existence  of  God,  his  di- 
vinity would  be  reflected  from  all  parts  of  it  in  an  incontestable  manner;  but  as  it 
subsists  only  by  Jesus  Christ  and  for  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  teach  men  both  theii 
corruption  and  redemption,  all  in  it  shines  with  these  two  truths.  That  whicb 
there  appears  marks,  neither  a  total  exclusion,  nor  yet  a  manifest  presence  of 
I>eity,  but  the  presence  of  a  Qod  who  hides  himself:  all  bears  this  character." 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  353 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    INCARNATION   PRIMARILY   FACT   AND   NOT   DOCTRINE. 

The  Incarnation  is  to  be  viewed  primarily  as  a  revealed  fact. 
It  is  a  revelation  of  God  in  the  form  of  fact  and  history,  and  as 
such  has  about  it  the  majesty  of  fact.  It  is  not  a  mere  specula- 
tion, nor  a  mere  doctrine,  nor  a  mere  abstract  truth:  but  a  truth 
of  fact.  It  belongs  to  what  we  have  called  the  Christian  Real- 
ism in  distinction  from  Nominalism.1 

Nor  yet  again,  is  it  a  mere  fact  of  an  inspired  record:  it  is 
not  merely  a  truth  announced  in  such  a  record.  So  to  speak,  it 
lies  back  of  the  record,  and  the  record  tells  us  about  it.  It  is 
an  historical  manifestation  of  God  in  the  midst  of  men.  Christ 
the  God-man  appears  in  human  history,  as  a  part  thereof;  be 
comes  a  member  of  the  race;  lives,  suffers  and  dies  for  our 
redemption;  and  in  all  this  we  have  a  sublime  series  of  facts, 
of  which  the  Scriptures  give  us  the  record.  The  first  point  to 
be  aimed  at,  then,  in  respect  to  the  doctrine,  is  the  proof  of  its 
historical  verity,  on  the  basis  of  evidence;  and  not  the  specula- 
tive apprehension  of  it,  or  an  a  priori  deduction  of  its  possibility. 
This  is  a  far-reaching  statement  about  this  truth,  and  puts  it — 
and  this  alone  puts  it — in  its  just  position.  This  is  the  way  in 
which  it  stands  in  the  Bible,  as  differing  from  systematic  the- 
ology. The  Scriptures  enter  into  no  speculation  about  the  two 
natures  and  their  union,  nor  into  philosophical  objections,  but 
they  announce  the  grand  and  simple  truth  that  God  was  in 
Christ.  The  Proem  to  John's  Gospel  is  a  narration  given  by 
a  man  who  has  seen  a  vision  of  facts:  the  first  act,  Creation, 
the  second,  Incarnation. 

1  [Iii trod,  to  Chris.  Theol.,  p.  5.] 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE    FACT    OP   THE    INCARNATION   IN   RELATION   TO   MAN*S   MORAl    "WANTS. 

It  may  be  said  to  be  demanded  by  man,  in  the  sense  in  which 
need  implies  demand. 

§  1.  It  presents  us  with  the  Life  of  a  perfect  Man  as  a  Model 
for  Imitation,  and  so  meets  Need. 

1.  Every  being  who  has  a  conscience  has  also  the  image  or 
ideal  of  a  perfect  man  and  a  perfect  life.     Wherever  there  is 
any  morality,  there  is  a  certain  standard,  not  only  of  abstract, 
but  also  of  human  excellence.     There  is  an  innate  loyalty  of  the 
soul  to  what  is  good  and   great.     Nations  will  have  heroes, 
though  they  have  to  invent  their  most  heroic  qualities.     Chil- 
dren   must   have  models   for   imitation,   though  they  may   be 
models  of  imperfect  men  and  women.     Thus  there  is  in  the 
human  race  both  the  universal  desire  for  a  model  and  a  univer- 
sal defect  in  the  models.     And  this  universal  longing  is  satisfied, 
this  universal  defect  is  supplied,  in  the  life  of  Jesus. 

2.  The  natural  longing  of  the  human  heart  for  the  view  of 
moral  perfection  is  not  met  by  promulgating  law  and  sharpen- 
ing the  sense  of  duty,  nor  by  exalting  the  ideal  of  morality.    The 
profoundest  minds  of'every  age  have  given  their  best  thoughts 
to  ethical  systems,  to  codes  of  righteous  laws,  to  the  description 
of  what  each  man  should  be  as  the  citizen  of  a  perfect  state. 
And  all  of  us  have  some  vision  of  personal  perfection,   some 
imagination  of  the  harmonious  blending  and  working  of  our 
powers,  some  impulse  towards  the  attainment  of  purer  love  and 
higher  holiness.    We  all  have  some  ideal  of  excellence.    But  even 
though  we  give  to  our  abstract  ideal  of  excellence  the  form  and 
features  of  a  man,  it  does  not  touch  our  hearts;  it  may  be  as 
beautiful,  but  it  is  as  cold  as  a  statue.     An  imagined  excellence 
is  not  really  human;  an  ideal  man  is  not  a  man  at  all.     Ideal 
virtue  has  not  been  diffused  through  the  affections,  nor  has  it 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  355 

emerged  from  the  will,  of  a  moral  being.  It  has  passed  through 
no  conflicts,  has  resisted  no  temptations,  has  purified  no  affection, 
has  not  been  the  basis  or  the  result  of  any  choice;  it  is  neither  a 
moral  act  nor  a  moral  state  of  a  moral  being.  And  hence  it  is 
that  it  has  so  light  attractions  upon  the  affections  of  a  moral 
being.  All  praise  virtue  in  the  abstract,  but  the  praise  is  barren 
of  fruit.  The  voluptuary  may  not  only  pant  for  an  ideal  beauty, 
he  may  also  admire  an  ideal  virtue.  It  may  attract  everything 
within  him,  but — his  affections;  may  touch  all  that  his  nature 
contains,  excepting — his  depravity.  And  even  with  the  best  of 
men  it  is  found  that  some  of  the  most  effectual  motives  to 
obedience  and  a  holy  life,  and  especially  to  the  practice  of  hum- 
ble and  self-denying  and  daily  virtues,  are  not  so  much  derived 
from  the  abstract  purity  of  a  holy  law,  nor  yet  from  the  sheer 
imagination  of  a  possible  human  excellence,  as  from  some  elec- 
tric excitement  of  human  sympathies,  some  powerful  constraint 
from  the  lives  and  self-sacrificing  zeal  of  one  or  another  around 
them,  from  some  kindling  of  holy  affections  in  communion  with 
an  unseen  friend,  and  most  of  all,  from  some  emotion  of  grati- 
tude or  benevolence  or  love  of  virtue  that  has  become  an  effect- 
ual motive  from  the  view  of  the  life,  the  love,  the  sufferings  of 
the  Lord  Jesus. 

3.  The  conformity  of  such  a  character  as  that  of  Christ,  to 
our  moral  necessities,  is  still  further  seen,  if  we  consider  some 
of  the  special  virtues  on  which  our  peace  and  happiness,  the 
welfare  of  individuals  and  of  society  depend.  The  fact  is  that 
these  depend  on  the  practice  of  the  humblest  virtues.  Pride 
grows  by  nature,  humility  thrives  only  by  culture ;  self-boasting 
needs  to  be  excluded,  self-denial  to  be  excited;  wilfulness  is 
born  with  us,  a  truly  submissive  spirit  is  a  new  birth  of  the 
soul.  Natural  kindness  is  often  overcome  by  spleen,  soured  by 
disappointment,  made  fretful  by  petty  cares  and  trials;  and  it  is 
hard  to  ensure  its  constancy.  Justice  is  more  praised  than 
loved;  obedience  oftener  commanded  than  practised.  It  is 
easier  to  hate  foes  than  to  forgive  them;  it  is  easier  to  pray 
that  they  may  be  forgiven  than  to  seek  to  win  their  good-will. 
In  the  business  of  life^  what  evils  are  there  which  honesty  and  a 


356  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

checking  of  the  inordinate  love  of  wealth  would  not  counteract? 
Fraud,  unjust  gains,  immense  speculations,  too  great  inequality 
in  the  distribution  of  the  things  of  life,  the  making  haste  to  be 
rich  by  which  we  fall  into  temptation  and  a  snare:  all  these  and 
kindred  evils  can  be  done  away,  and  can  only  be  done  away, 
by  a  recurrence  to  the  practice  of  the  simplest,  yet  hardest  vir- 
tues. And  to  suffer  shame  and  reproach  on  account  of  the  gos- 
pel and  of  truth,  to  be  mild  when  reviled,  to  bear  the  desertion 
of  friends  and  the  scoffs  of  enemies,  to  dare  to  speak  the  truth 
in  season:  these  things  are  not  easy  of  attainment,  though  most 
needful  in  an  evil  world.  To  relieve  the  wretched,  to  seek  out 
the  wanderers,  to  help  the  suffering,  to  reclaim  the  abandoned,  to 
sympathize  in  the  sorrows  of  the  poor  and  minister  to  their  con- 
solation, to  seek  the  vicious  with  love  when  they  repel  us  with 
contumely:  in  short,  to  live  in  a  sinful  world  and  among  evil 
men  as  children  of  the  light  and  of  the  day,  redeeming  the  time 
because  the  days  are  evil:  this  is  most  necessary  for  the  world's 
welfare,  yet  difficult  even  for  those  who  are  striving  for  re- 
demption. Now  of  all  these  necessary  and  neglected  virtues 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  most  eminent  exemplar.  It  was  not  neces- 
sary that  He  should  be  a  temporal  king,  but  kings  are  greatest 
when  they  rule  their  kingdoms  as  He  ruled  his  spirit.  It  was 
not  necessary  that  He  should  be  a  statesman,  but  statesmen  are 
noblest  when  the  favor  or  frown  of  the  people  are  to  them  as 
they  were  to  Him.  (It  was  not  necessary  that  He  should  be 
a  husband  or  a  father — this  were  to  degrade  his  mission,  and  to 
class  Him  with  the  sons  of  men — but  it  is  necessary  that  parents 
should  practise  his  virtues,  and  fulfil  their  duties  in  the  same 
spirit  in  which  He  fulfilled  his.  It  was  more  needful  that  He 
should  be  a  child,  that  thus  to  all  the  race  from  their  earliest 
years  his  example  might  be  held  up  clear  and  fair.)  It  was  not 
necessary  that  He  should  be  to  us  an  example  in  the  virtues 
which  the  world  loves  and  honors,  for  the  world  rewards  its 
servitors  only  too  liberally,  it  incites  them  to  wealth  and  honor 
only  too  strongly.  But  it  was  needful  that  He  should  be  an  ex- 
ample of  self-denial,  of  humility,  of  forgiveness  of  enemies,  of 
daily  endeavor  to  do  good,  of  patience,  of  submission,  of  speak 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  357 

ing  against  all  evil  and  sin,  while  He  sought  to  reclaim  the 
sinful,  of  meekness  and  forbearance  in  the  midst  of  reproaches 
and  persecutions,  of  seeking  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father  and 
of  perfect  submission  to  that  will.  In  short,  it  was  necessary 
that  there  should  be  a  perfect  harmony  of  all  his  powers,  and 
a  harmony  created  by  their  entire  subjection  to  the  law  of  love, 
to  the  love  of  God.  It  was  well,  it  was  needful  for  all  mankind 
that  they  should  see  that  the  highest  human  perfection,  the 
most  potent  human  influence,  is  not  found  in  the  objects  which 
are  of  the  highest  human  esteem,  not  in  wealth,  nor  in  power, 
not  in  the  senate  nor  on  the  field  of  battle,  not  in  literature  nor 
in  science,  but  in  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  in  a  love  which 
can  be  shown  in  poverty  as  well  as  in  riches,  when  despised  as 
well  as  when  powerful,  in  daily  life  more  than  in  the  career  of 
statesmen,  in  the  field  of  the  Amoral  conflicts  of  the  race  better 
than  on  fields  of  carnage  and  of  blood.  That  He  might  be  the 
pattern  of  the  race  in  all  things,  this  was  needful.  That  men 
might  be  incited  to  the  love  and  practice  of  these  daily  and  self- 
denying  virtues,  it  was  fitting  that  a  model  should  be  set  before 
them, — one,  a  man  like  themselves,  exposed  to  the  same,  and 
to  greater  temptations  and  trials  than  they  all,  living  in  the 
same  evil  world,  finding  the  same  foes  to  duty,  and  yet  living 
above  the  world,  and  overcoming  all  its  temptations  and 
malice  and  might — overcoming  by  yielding  to  his  enemies 
everything  but  his  virtue,  his  love  to  God  and  love  to  man. 
Such  an  example  is  Christ  to  us,  to  all  of  us,  in  all  those  daily 
and  hourly  conflicts  we  are  called  to  make  for  the  sake  of  truth 
and  duty. 

4.  But  the  whole  effect  of  such  an  eminent  example  is  not 
found — perhaps  its  chief  effect  is  not  found — in  the  single  vir- 
tues of  his  noble  and  ennobling  character.  TJie  total  impression 
of  such  a  man,  and  of  such  a  life,  is  the  grand  source  of  its 
strong  influence  upon  others.  It  is  the  harmony  and  complete- 
ness of  his  spiritual  character,  it  is  the  consistency  of  his  whole 
life  with  our  highest  standard  of  perfection,  it  is  because  we 
feel  that  all  He  did  and  said  flowed  from  one  pure  unfailing 
source,  and  that  the  purity  of  his  life  was  only  an  expression  of 


358  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

the  spotlessness  of  his  soul — it  is  this  total  impression  of  hia 
spirit  upon  us  which  moves  us  most  strongly,  and  which  makes 
Him  to  be  a  perfect  model  to  us. 

§  2.  The  Relation  of  the  Incarnation  to  Human  Wants  is  seen  in 
its  giving  to  Man  the  most  direct  Access  to,  and  Communion  with,  God. 

1.  Man  craves  such  an  impersonation  of  Deity.  We  may 
say  that  his  religious  instinct  leads  him  to  seek  some  visible 
and  palpable  representation  of  God's  attributes.  This  may  be 
to  some  extent  the  effect  of  sin,  but  it  is  also  congruous  with 
those  infirmities  of  our  finite  state  which  are  not  sinful.  The 
expression  of  this  desire  is  most  palpable  in  heathenism.  It  is 
indeed  there  disfigured  and  distorted.  Their  idols  are  an  abom- 
ination unto  the  Lord,  as  are  their  sacrifices  also.  But  even  as 
their  sacrifices  show  how  deeply  the  sense  of  guilt  and  the  need 
of  expiation  are  seated  in  human  nature ;  and  as  these  feelings 
are  true  and  necessary,  though  the  mode  of  their  exhibition  is 
false  and  degrading;  so  in  respect  to  their  idols,  it  may  be  as- 
serted that  they  are  evidence  of  a  profound  longing  in  the  human 
mind  for  some  visible  manifestation  of  deity.  God  and  man  are 
at  such  an  infinite  distance  from  each  other,  that  when  man 
would  seek  God,  he  will  even  make  an  idol  that  he  may  thus 
at  least  imagine  that  he  has  found  Him.  Between  the  infinite 
Spirit  and  the  finite  soul  there  is  a  space  which,  when  men 
try  to  fill,  they  people  with  idols;  but  which  God  has  filled  by 
the  person  of  his  Son.  So  deep-seated  is  this  desire  of  some 
visible  connection  with  the  invisible  God,  that  even  in  the 
church  of  Christ,  when  it  became  Roman  Catholic,  and  when 
1he  living  sense  of  a  direct  personal  relation  between  Christ  and 
his  followers  had  become  feeble  (and  his  actual  presence  was 
limited  to  the  external  order  and  worship  of  the  church),  it  was 
found  necessary  to  accommodate  the  notions  of  that  church  in 
so  far  to  the  wants  of  man,  as  to  supply  the  place  of  the  Re- 
deemer who  had  been  hidden  from  them,  by  the  winning  graces 
and  image  of  his  mortal  mother,  by  crowds  of  saints  and  by 
images  of  glorified  spirits.  They  banished  the  Saviour  from  his 
immediate  connection  with  the  hearts  of  his  people;  but  they 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  359 

were  obliged  to  find  some  substitute  to  satisfy  the  cravings  for  an 
object  of  worship  which  should  call  out  human  sympathies. — Not 
only  in  false  or  corrupt  religions  is  this  want  experienced :  it  is 
also  deeply  felt  whenever  there  is  an  unusual  excitement  of  our 
religious  feelings.  We  long  for  a  closer  walk  with  God  tha  a 
we  can  have  with  a  being  whom  we  consider  only  as  infinite  in 
his  attributes,  "removed  from  us  by  the  whole  diameter  of  be- 
ing." Almost  unconsciously,  we  make  to  ourselves  an  image 
even  of  the  invisible  Father.  We  think  of  a  throne  and  Him 
that  sits  upon  it.  We  think  of  a  countenance  of  terrible 
majesty,  severe  in  justice,  or  melting  into  love.  We  seem  to 
see  an  eye,  fixed  upon  our  path,  noting  all  our  ways;  a  hand 
stretched  out  to  rescue  us,  an  arm  for  our  defence.  All  this  is 
indeed  imagery,  but  it  is  the  natural  and  necessary  imagery  of 
the  religious  spirit.  And  the  stronger  the  fervor  of  the  religious 
spirit,  the  more  do  such  images  crowd  upon  us.  In  the  Incarna- 
tion we  learn  that  all  this  imagery  has  become  reality.  These 
scattered  images  drawn  from  different  members  are,  so  to  speak, 
gathered  into  one  matchless  and  human  form. 

It  has  been  objected  that  such  a  craving  of  the  soul  for  some 
visible  manifestation  of  the  Godhead  belongs  to  an  inferior  stage 
of  religious  culture. — But  the  fact  is,  that  the  more  enlarged  our 
views  of  God  are,  the  more  do  we  need  such  a  help  to  our  wor- 
ship and  love.  "The  difficulty,"  says  Dr.  Whately,1  "of  coming 
near  to  God  and  fixing  our  affections  upon  Him  is  increased  in 
proportion  as  man  advances  in  refinement  of  notions,  in  cultiva- 
tion of  intellect,  and  in  habits  of  profound  philosophical  reflec- 
tion. A  semi-barbarous  people  is  less  likely  to  think  of  the 
vastness  and  infinity  of  God,  than  is  a  more  enlightened  age. 
Hence  it  is  that  the  religion  of  those  whose  speculations  respect- 
ing the  deity  have  been  accounted  the  most  refined  and  exalted, 
has  always  been  cold  and  heartless  in  its  devotion,  or  rather  has 
been  nearly  destitute  of  devotion  altogether."  To  counteract 
the  chilling  tendency  of  our  abstract  speculations  about  God, 
nothing  is  so  adapted  as  that  conception  of  Him  which  we  reack 
through  the  wondrous  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation.  In  the  Per- 

1  Sermon:  God  made  Man,  p.  10. 


360  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

son  of  his  Son,  God's  infinite  majesty  is  transformed  into  a  ma- 
jestic loveliness;  his  infinite  love  is  made  audible  and  visible; 
his  rebuke  and  hatred  of  sin  are  indeed  revealed  most  clearly 
to  our  conceptions,  but  his  love  of  the  sinner,  his  willingness 
to  pardon  and  receive  him,  are  manifested  in  the  whole  life  and 
in  the  death  of  Jesus,  as  they  could  be  exhibited  in  no  other  way.1 
2.  What  man  thus  craves  is  more  perfectly  given  in  the  Incar- 
nation than  in  any  other  conceivable  way.  God  assumes  the 
nature,  form,  and  speech  of  man;  He  addresses  him  as  a  member 
of  the  same  race;  He  becomes  united  to  him  by  all  the  ties  of 
brotherhood.  This  is  the  perfection  of  a  divine  condescension; 
and  it  appeals  to  man  more  forcibly  than  can  aught  else.  Con- 
sider the  difference  between  Moses  and  Christ.  And  all  this 
difference  is  made  by  the  fact  that  in  Christ  we  have  God  In- 
carnate, the  God-man.2  In  the  one  case,  it  is  an  ambassador 
delivering  a  message ;  in  the  other,  it  is  the  King  Himself,  con- 
versing with  the  subject,  pleading  with  the  rebel.  The  dignity 
of  the  Incarnate  God  arrests  and  attracts  us.8 

§  3.  Especially  is  the  need  of  an  Incarnation  manifest  when 
we  view  it  as  an  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption,  and  as  thus 
meeting  man's  moral  wants  as  a  sinner.  Here  is  a  real  moral 
necessity  for  it. 

1.  The  effect  of  sin  is  to  increase,  seemingly  to  the  mind,  the 
remoteness  of  Deity,  separation  from  Him,  and  this  in  three  ways: 
(a.)  as  man's  spiritual  perception  is  darkened;  (b.)  as  his  heart  is 
cold  to  the  call  of  God's  love;  (c.)  as  he  fears  chiefly  the  judg- 
ment of  God  against  him  as  a  sinner.  This  sense  of  remoteness 
is  removed  in  all  these  respects:  (a.)  since  Christ  in  the  most 
persuasive  manner  brings  spiritual  truth,  with  authority,  and 
so  breaks  in  upon  the  darkness  of  the  spirit;  (&.)  since  He  in 
the  fulness  of  divine-human  love  appeals  to  the  human  heart; 
(c.)  since  He  testifies  by  words  and  deeds  that  He  is  come,  not 
to  condemn,  but  to  save. 

1  See  a  remarkable  utterance  of  Dr.  Arnold,  Life,  p.  212. 

2  "  Thus  He  stood  behind  the  wall,  and  showed  Himself  through  the  lattice  * 
(Leighton). 

*  Chalmers,  The  Moral  Uses  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Incarnation. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  361 

2.  This  moral  necessity  of  an  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemp 
tion  is  seen  more  clearly  in  the  light  of  the  great  fact,  that  man 
himself  cannot  atone  for  past  sin.     Such  an  incarnate  Redeemer 
was  needed  to  make  satisfaction:  Rom.  iii.  20;  Gal.  ii.  16. 

Thus  does  the  Incarnation  meet  man's  needs  as  a  sinner,  the 
facts  of  his  sinful  condition.  Its  force,  its  power,  it&  urgency, 
are  in  this,  that  "  there  is  none  other  name  given  under  heaven 
among  men,  whereby  we  must  be  saved." 

3.  Moreover  there  is  a  moral  necessity  that  the  moral  attri- 
butes of  God  be  seen  to  be  harmonized  in  the  pardoning  and 
justifying  of  sinners.     The  harmonizing  of  mercy  and  justice,  of 
maintenance  of  law  and  love  of  the  sinner,  is  accomplished  in 
the  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption,  as  it  could  be  in  no  other 
way.     And  Christ  suffering,  dying  in  our  stead,  appeals  to  the 
human  heart,  as  does,  as  can,  no  other  spectacle.     Here  that  mani- 
festation of  the  divine  attributes,  which  is  necessary,  is  made, 
and  in  the  mode  best  fitted  to  the  wants  of  an  apostate  world. 

Thus,  in  the  Incarnation,  we  have  not  only  the  life  of  a  per- 
fect man  (as  we  have  seen  in  §  2),  but  we  also  have  a  manifestation 
of  God,  in  a  mode  adapted  to  our  human  necessities.  And  our 
Saviour  not  only  revealed  God  to  us,  but  was  Himself  the  very 
manifestation  of  God  in  the  midst  of  the  world.  Not  only  could 
He  point  us  upward  to  the  Father,  but  without  presumption  He 
could  say,  he  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father. 

Another  Statement. — Far  be  it  from  our  thoughts  to  attempt 
to  penetrate  the  depths  of  the  divine  counsels  in  this  great  matter 
of  which  a  Father  of  the  church  says,  "  Of  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  nothing  is  so  wonderful  as  that  God  has  become  incarnate," 
excepting  as  these  counsels  are  made  known  in  his  word,  as  they 
are  seen  in  the  history  of  his  church,  and  as  they  are  felt  in  the 
souls  of  his  children.  We  may  not  be  able  to  know  all  the  rea- 
sons why  the  Word  became  flesh:  but  some  of  them,  and  sufficient 
to  engross  all  our  power  of  thought  and  feeling,  are  manifest 
in  the  ends  actually  accomplished,  in  the  revealed  and  visible 
and  experienced  results  of  the  Incarnation. 

These  actual  results  may  be  thus  summed  up:  The  first  result 


362  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  to  give  to  our  imitation  the  life  of  a  perfect  man;  the  second  ia 
to  bring,  not  only  God's  attributes,  but  God  Himself  near  to  us; 
the  third  result  (to  be  considered  by  and  by)  is  the  entire  union 
of  the  infinite  and  the  finite,  the  divine  and  the  human  natures, 
in  one  Person;  and  the  fourth  result,  to  which  all  the  others 
converge,  is  the  making  a  propitiation  for  our  sins  and  fur- 
nishing the  headship  for  that  eternal  church,  in  which  is  our 
accomplished  salvation. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HOW  FAB  MAY  AN  INCARNATION  BE  SAID  TO  BE  NECESSARY  ON 
THE  PART  OF  GOD?1 

Here  there  are  different  classes  of  opinions.  Some  say:  An 
Incarnation  on  the  part  of  God  is  absolutely  necessary,  is  de- 
manded by  the  divine  nature,  apart  from  sin.  Others:  It  was  ab- 
solutely necessary  on  the  part  of  God,  after  man  had  sinned:  the 
divine  attributes  unconditionally  demand  Redemption  through 
an  Incarnation.  Still  others:  No  Incarnation  was  needed;  men 
might  as  well  have  been  redeemed  by  the  proclamation  of  God's 
grace  in  other  ways. 

Really  there  are  only  two  theories:  (1)  that  of  metaphysical 
necessity:  the  divine  nature  demanded  an  Incarnation  as  its 
necessary  complement;  God  is  not  complete  without  man;  the 
infinite  requires  the  finite  as  much  (relatively)  as  the  finite  the 
infinite:  (2)  the  theory  of  a  moral  necessity;  and  this  is  subdi- 
vided into:  (a.)  moral  necessity,  in  that  all  the  divine  attributes, 
justice  as  well  as  love,  demand  it;  (&.) — in  that  it  is  demanded 
by  love,  though  not  by  justice.2 

1  Aug.  de  Trin. :  "Alia  multa  sunt  cogitanda  in  Christi  incarnations  prsetei 
absolutionem  peccati." 

2  As  to  the  Incarnation  of  God,  apart  from  sin,  see  W.  Florke,  Luth.  Zschrift., 
2,  1854.     "There  is  only  one  passage  in  antiquity  for  it,  Iren.  adv.  Hser.,  v.  16"; 
"  the  doctrine  of  Irenasus  and  the  Fathers  is,  that  Christ  became  incarnate  for  sin, 
and  not  without,  and  that  there  are  only  casual  expressions  against  this  .'" 

The  voice  of  antiquity  is  well  summed  up  in  Thomasius,  Dogmatik,  p.  166.    Th« 
Nicene  Creed  is  against  it:  "Who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation,"  etc.     Au 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  dt)3 

I. — The  modern  Socinian,  Unitarian  view.  No  Incarnation 
at  all  was  needed:  we  might  as  well  have  been  redeemed  with- 
out it,  by  the  proclamation  of  God's  grace  in  other  ways. 

This  opinion  is  as  bold  on  the  side  of  denial,  as  that  of 
absolute  necessity  is  on  the  side  of  affirmation.  It  is  a  purely 
ethical,  rather  than  a  Christian  view.  The  basis  of  it  is  the 
view  that  all  that  is  needed  for  man's  culture  is,  teaching,  motives, 
an  ethical  training; — and  for  man's  renovation,  only  a  higher  and 
more  impressive  degree  of  teaching  and  class  of  motives.  God, 
it  says,  might  as  well  have  announced  the  fact  of  his  gracious 
designs,  have  revealed  his  love  in  a  way  to  impress  us;  and  for 
all  we  can  see,  the  same  end  would  have  been  answered.  But: 
(a.)  This  is  a  mere  opinion,  unsupported  by  facts.  So  far  as  we 
know,  no  mere  influence  of  motives  is  enough.  History  is 
, against  it.  (&.)  From  the  actual  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  we  may 
justly  conclude,  that,  whether  we  can  see  it  or  not,  there  is  a 
fitness,  a  moral  necessity,  of  such  a  mode  of  Redemption  as  is 
given  in  the  Incarnation.  It  is,  doubtless,  the  wisest  and  best 
method  of  restoring  fallen  man.  (c.)  While  philosophy  may  not 
affirm  the  absolute  necessity  of  an  Incarnation,  it  is  equally  in- 
competent to  affirm  that  it  was  not  necessary.  It  may  be,  that 
after  human  nature  had  become  degenerate  by  the  fall,  it  could 

gustine:  "Tolle  morbos,  tolle  vulnera,  et  nulla  medecinaa  causa."  Among  the 
Scholastics,  Wessel,  Scotus,  and  the  Franciscans  favor  the  position.  Aquinas: 
"Peccato  non  existente,  incarnatio  non  fuisset."  Anselm  knows  nothing  of  this 
view.  Servetus  favored  it.  Calvin  is  against  it,  Inst.  ii.  ch.  xii.  §  4-7.  Socinus 
(under  the  influence  of  the  Italian  philosophy):  Christ  would  have  come  if  thero 
had  been  no  sin,  to  insure  immortality.  At  present,  the  position  is  advocated  by 
Liebner,  Dorner,  Martensen,  Kurtz  (who  gives  it  up  in  one  of  the  later  editions  of 
his  Bible  and  Astronomy).  Julius  Mtiller  is  against  it,  see  Deut.  Zeits.,  Oct.  1850. 
"The  Reformers  had  too  deep  a  sense  of  sin  to  accept  this."  "The  whole  of 
Scripture  is  for  the  soteriological  point  of  view."  "  This  view  makes  the  death  on 
the  cross  a  mere  accessory,  incidental  event."  In  Brit,  and  For.  Ev  Rev.,  Jan.  '66, 
Dorner' s  interpretation  of  the  passage  in  Irenseus  is  disputed.  Irenseus:  "  Si  non 
haber/  it  caro  salvari,  nequaquam  verbum  Dei  caro  factus  esset."  Dorner:  "  If  it  had 
not  tw  en  possible  to  restore  humanity  to  its  archetypal  form—."  Eeview:  "  If  flesh 
had  r,  -»t  required  to  be  saved—."  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  Aquinas,  3«. 
q.  iii.,  art.  8,  "  Convenientissimum  fuit  personam  Filii  incarnari  ....  quia  .... 
verbum  Dei,  quod  est  reternus  conceptus  ejns,  est  similitudo  exemplaris  totius  crea- 
turae.  Et  ideo  sicut  per  participationem  hujus  sirnilitudinis  creatune  sunt  in 
propriis  speciebus  institute,  sed  mobiliter,  ita  per  unionem  Verbi  ad  creaturam 
non  parti cipatam,  sed  personalem,  conveniens  fuit  reparari  creaturam  in  ordine  ad 
eeternam  et  immobilem  perfectionem.A 


364  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

not  become  regenerate  in  all  its  parts,  except  through  an  I  near* 
nation, — e.  g.,  as  respects  the  resurrection  of  the  glorified  body 
through  Christ. 

II. — The  assertion  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  an  Incarnation. 

Here  we  have  the  Christian  system  in  the  form  of  metaphys- 
ics, without  its  ethics.  The  metaphysical  is  substituted  for  the 
ethical.  It  is  said  that  the  divine  nature  demands  an  Incarna- 
tion, sin  or  no  sin. 

1.  As  to  the  Biblical  basis.     The  passages  cited  are  the  four: 
Eph.  i.  10;  Col.  i.  15,  16;'  Eph.  iv.  24;  Col.  iii.  10,  11.     It  is  said 
that  these  teach  the  relation  of  Christ  to  all  the  creation,  apart 
from  sin.     But,  contra:  (1)  The  Christ  whom  Paul  had  habitually 
in  mind  is  the  Christ  appearing  for  sin.2     (2)  Christ  might  have 
had  an  intimate  relation  to  all  created  beings  as  a  mediator  (in 
large  sense)  without  sin,  and  without  an  Incarnation.     (3)  The 
Bible  explicitly  represents  sin  as  the  final  cause  of  the  Incarna- 
tion:  Rom.  viii.  3;  John  iii.  16;  Gal.  iv.  4,  5;   Heb.  ii.  14-16; 
1  Tim.  i.  15 ;  1  John  iii.  8 ;  Matt.  xx.  28. 

2.  As  to  the  ontological  aspect.     This  view  attempts  to  sup- 
port itself  by  saying  that  God,  for  his  own  completeness,  needed 
to  become  incarnate:  there  was  a  metaphysical  need.     It  is  also 
said  that  there  was  a  moral  need,  a  need  in  order  to  the  perfect 
exercise  of  love:  his  love  could  not  be  otherwise  fully  communi- 
cated, neither  his  love  to  his  Son,  nor  his  love  to  men. 

But,  (a.)  It  is  not  to  be  seen  why  God  might  not  have 
fully  and  spiritually  communicated  Himself  to  men  without  an 
Incarnation.  He  probably  does  to  angels, — why  not  to  men  ?  * 
Of.  Heb.  ii.  16.  Some  say:  man  here  is  above  all  angels,  greater 
and  higher. 

1  This,  which  is  the  most  important,  is  considered  a  little  later.     * 

2  Cf.  also,  1  Cor.  xv.  -i5-7;  Eph.  i.  21-3;  1  Pet,  iii.  22. 

3  Dr.  Candlish,  Lectures  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  1864:  Against  Incarnation 
without  Fall,  but  says:  even  angels  are  not  by  nature  sons  of  God:  they  became 
such  through  a  probation,  like  man's  essentially:  the  point  being,  a  demand  to  be- 
come subject  to  the  Son  of  God  revealed  proleptically  as  the  Word  made  flesh. 
(Cf.  Jonathan  Edwards's  view  of  the  Probation  and  Fall  of  Angels,  and  Owen's 
view  of  the  Recapitulation  of  all  in  Christ.)    Against:  Brit,  and  For.  Ev.  Eev., 
Jan.  1866:  "  Candlish' s  view  leads  to  the  position  that  the  Incarnation  would  hava 
occurred,  if  no  sin." 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  365 

(b.}  The  consequence  of  this  position  would  be,  that  the  Son 
of  God  really  came  for  his  own  sake,  not  for  ours. 

(a)  "The  Bible  says,  God  is  love:  this  view,  Love  is  God" 
(J.  Muller). 

3.  The  anthropological  side.  That  for  the  completion  of 
human  nature,  to  bring  it  into  full  union  with  God,  an  Incar- 
nation was  necessary.  "  Man  cannot  obtain  perfection  but  by 
the  Incarnation  of  the  Logos."  Christ  is  the  head  of  humanity: 
the  first  Adam  presupposes  the  second. 

This  appears  to  commend  itself  to  those  whose  sense  of  sin 
is  not  deep.1 

But,  (a.)  This  view  supposes  that  in  the  first  Adam  the 
means  of  obtaining  the  end  of  his  being  did  not  exist  before 
the  Fall.  This  is  against  the  Scriptures,  both  in  respect  to 
Adam  himself  and  in  respect  to  the  restoration  of  the  divine 
image. 

(b.)  How  are  we  to  explain,  that  Christ  came  only  in  the 
midst  of  history  and  not  at  first? 

(c.)  Moreover,  it  is  a  mere  assumption:  an  abstract,  logical 
assertion,  destitute  of  evidence. 

(d.)  All  spiritual  influences  needed  might  be  otherwise 
bestowed. 

(e.)  This  view  is  defended  by  saying,  if  the  Logos  had  not 
become  incarnate,  the  race  would  have  had  no  unity,  no  head: 
but  this  supposes  that  Christ  came,  not  for  sin,  but  for  man,  that 
He  is  the  head  of  the  race,  not  of  the  redeemed,  and  so  it  is 
against  the  Scripture,  which  says  that  Christ  is  the  head  of 
those  only  in  whom  He  works  by  his  Spirit:  Eph.  i.  22;  iv.  12; 
Col.  i.  18 ;  ii.  19 ;  1  Cor.  xii.  3.  On  this  view,  all  men  have  eter- 
nal life  in  Christ,  and  thus  it  runs  against  the  whole  soteriology 
of  Scripture.  Christ  comes,  not  for  human  nature  in  general, 
but  for  sinful  human  nature,  to  redeem  it.  He  is  not  the  head 
of  humanity,  but  of  redeemed  humanity. 

III.  The  third  class  of  opinions.  An  Incarnation  was  nec- 
essary, on  the  part  of  God,  after  man  had  sinned.  The  moral  di- 
vine attributes  demanded  it,  all  the  attributes,  i.  e.,  on  the  score 
1  Strongly  put  by  Mtiller,  in  the  article  cited  above. 


366  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

of  justice.1  They  demand  it  (a)  unconditionally;  (b)  condition- 
ally, on  the  ground  of  love.  There  is  a  truth  in  this,  so  far  as 
it  does  not  put  a  natural,  but  only  a  moral  necessity  in  God ;  and 
so  far  as  it  does  not  claim  that  God,  on  the  score  of  justice,  must 

redeem  a  fallen  world. 

f 

(A.)  The  unconditional  demand.  The  substance  of  this 
view:  Metaphysically,  there  is  no  absolute  necessity.  Yet  God, 
in  creating  a  world,  must  create  it  to  have  its  end  in  himself, 
for  his  glory,  in  the  good  of  creatures.  This  is  the  only  con- 
ceivable end.  Hence,  if  creatures  sinned,  and  so  lost  the  chief 
end  of  their  being,  God,  to  promote  and  achieve  this  end,  must 
Druvide  redemption.  He  need  not  have  created,  yet,  having  cre- 
ated, and  for  an  end,  if  the  creature  by  sinning  is  in  such  a 
state  that  the  end  cannot  be  attained,  there  is,  on  this  ground, 
on  the  ground  of  this  supposition,  a  moral  necessity  of  a  scheme 
of  redemption.  Or,  to  take  the  same  thing  under  a  different 
aspect,  God,  as  love,  must  communicate  himself  freely  to  his 
creatures:  if  they  are  closed  against  it,  there  is  a  moral  necessity 
of  his  providing  a  way  thus  to  communicate  himself. 

But,  (a.)  Even  granting  what  is  here  asserted,  it  does  not 
collow  that  in  order  to  communicate  himself,  there  must  be  an 
Incarnation, 

And  (b.)  There  is  no  proof  of  such  an  unconditional  demand, 
excepting  on  the  hypothesis  of  universalism.  The  view  makes 
it  necessary  for  God  to  redeem  and  save  all,  on  the  score  of  jus- 
tice, and  as  a  matter  of  strict  right. 

(B.)  The  conditional  demand.  The  necessity  which  love  is 
under  to  realize  the  end  of  creation,  so  far  as  is  consistent  with 
moral  government.  On  the  score  of  divine  mercy  and  love,- 
there  is  a  constraining  influence  leading  to  redemption.  The 
question  here  then  returns:  How  much  may  be  asserted  on 
Biblical  and  other  grounds,  respecting  the  necessity  of  an  Incar- 
nation in  order  to  Eedemption. 

1,  Man  and  perhaps  all  created  intelligences  are  created  for 

'  See  Rothe,  Ethik,  §  526. 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  367 

and  destined  to,  union  with  God,  through  Christ.  The  chief 
passage  on  this  is  Col.  i.  15-17. 1  Here  we  have  the  following 
points:  (a.)  Man — and  all  beings — are  destined  to,  created  for, 
union  with  God  through  Christ,  (b.)  In  order  to  this  some  man- 
ifestation of  Christ  is  needed  for  and  by  all.  (c.)  An  IncarnatioE 
was  needed  on  account  of  sin  and  its  consequences,  (d. )  Onlj 
through  such  an  Incarnation  could  the  end  of  Redemption  be 
secured,  so  far  as  we  know,  (e.)  What  man  thus  gains  in 
Christ  is  much  more  than  what  was  lost  in  Adam.  (/)  We 
come  to  the  general  position  that  man,  at  any  rate,  could  have 
reached  such  glory  only  through  a  process;  he  had  it  not  at  first 
through  Adam. 

2.  This  general   position  is  further  illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  Christ  is  the  center  of  unity,  the  head  of  the  race  as  re- 
deemed, of  the  church.     The  passages  in  which  He  is  thus  set 
forth  refer  chiefly  to  the  work  of  redemption,  to  Him  as  head 
of  the  church :  but  in  the  church  God's  great  plan  for  the  race  is 
realized:  Col.  ii.   10;  Eph.  i.  10;  i.  22,  23;  iv.  12,  15,  16;  v.  23; 
Col.  i.  18;  ii.  19. 

3.  Accordingly,  men — all  redeemed  men — are  really  united 
to  Christ,  by  his  Spirit  dwelling  in  them.     Through  this  union, 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  only  thereby,  do  men  attain  to  a  re- 
generated state,  to  the  real  end  of  their  being,     (a.)  Passages 
in  which  this  union  is  spoken  of  directly:  Eph.  i.  23;  iv.  16; 
Col.  ii.  19  (Of.  Rom.  viii.  9;  1  Cor.  xii.  3);  John  xvii.  21,  23,  26. 
(b.)  Passages  in  which  the  fruits  of  this  union,  being  like  Christ, 
having  his  image,  living  and  dwelling  in  Him,  are  spoken  of: 
John  xiv.  23;  xvii.   10,  22,  23,  26;  Rom.  viii.  29;  Gal.  iv.  19; 
ii.  20;  2  Cor.  iii.  18;  Col.  iii.  10. 

From  the  foregoing  heads,  (1),  (2),  (3),  it  is  natural  to  con- 
•elude  that  Christ  would  have  been  in  some  way  the  mediator 
to  men,  even  if  they  had  not  sinned;  that  created  beings  were 
made  with  respect  to  Christ.  So  we  add: 

1  Col.  i.  19,  20,  sets  forth  the  reconciliation  of  all  things  unto  God,  through 
Christ.  Calvin  thinks  it  relates  to  the  influence  of  Christ's  work,  in  confirming 
augols  in  their  love  and  obedience;  others  take  it  as  affirming  a  relation  to  all  ere 
ated  beings,  which  is  more  probable. 


368  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

4.  That  it  is  probable  that  some  manifestation  of  the  Logce 
is  needed  by  and  for  all  beings,  in  coming  to  God. 

To  all  his  creatures  God  must  reveal  himself  that  they  may 
know  Him.  The  Logos,  so  far  as  we  know,  is  the  medium  of 
such  revelations.  Only  by  some  revelation  could  the  divine 
nature  and  attributes  be  made  known.  How  is  it  that  God 
reveals  his  attributes  ? — We  cannot  know,  no  finite  being  can 
know,  the  Infinite  One  directly:  there  must  be  a  medium.  This 
may  be  (a.)  implanted  knowledge,  as  ideas,  in  the  mind.  But 
this  is  complete  knowledge  only  intellectually,  and  not  a  com- 
plete knowledge  of  fact',  (6.)  some  finite  manifestation  of  himself 
— in  works — or  by  persons  commissioned — or  in  personal  form. 
It  may  be  that  the  Son  of  God  appears,  as  the  image  of  God, 
in  personal,  finite  form,  to  the  angelic  hosts.  Hence  we  say, 

5.  The  revelation  by  an  Incarnation  is  imperatively  needed, 
so  far  as  we  know,  on  account  of  sin  and  its  consequences,  if 
the  race  can  be  redeemed.     It  is  needed,  not  metaphysically, 
but  morally  and  teleologically,  if  God  is  to  fulfil  the  end  of  cre- 
ation, viz.,  the  most  perfect  manifestation  of  his  highest  attri- 
butes, his  declarative  glory.     The  Incarnation  was  not  needed 
by  God,  but  for  man.    It  was  a  free  act  of  condescension  and  grace 
on   God's  part.     We  cannot  say  that  Kedemption  could  have 
been  secured  in  any  other  method.     Though  a  free  act  on  God's 
part,  and  of  grace,  we  know  not  but  that  such  an  act  was  nec- 
essary both  physically1  and  morally,  if  man  was  to  be  redeemed. 
God  might  have  left  man  to  perish,  and  justly;  but,  if  He  would 
save  man,  it  may  be  that  there  is  no  other  way  than  through  an 
Incarnation.     It  is  very  possible  that  the  manifestation  of  grace 
to  a  race  of  beings,  to  be  redeemed,  made  up  of  body  and  spirit, 
could  be  only  by  an  Incarnate  Redeemer.     (The  ontology  and 
physics  of  Christianity.) 

1  As  relates  to  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  «.  g. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  369 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE    INCARNATION    IN     HISTORY. 

The  Incarnation  on  Historical  Grounds,  including  Prophetic, 

[Only  the  main  positions]. 

I. — The  ancient  Pagan  world  strives  to  realize  the  idea,  yet 
without  success.  This  is  seen:  (1)  In  the  great  religious  sys- 
tems— the  Oriental  and  Grseco-Roman,  (2)  In  the  aspirations  of 
wise  and  thoughtful  men. 

II. — The  Jewish  Scriptures  gradually  unfold  the  idea,  giving 
elements,  adumbrated,  prophetic;  so  that  they  are  seen  to  be  ful- 
filled in  Christ.  The  Jewish  monotheism  might  seem  to  be 
antagonistic,  but  running  through  the  whole  there  is  prophecy, 
promise,  pointing  to  a  Deliverer,  of  the  seed  of  man,  yet  the 
Son  of  God. 

III. — Jewish  and  Pagan  elements  come  speculativdy  together, 
in  the  Idea  of  the  Logos.  (Philo.) 

IV.— Hence,  Christianity  fulfils  the  expectation  of  the  whole 
ancient  world,  yet  in  a  more  perfect  way. 

V. — All  history  before  Christ  can  be  grouped  only  as  a  pre- 
paration for  his  coming. 

VI. — The  subsequent  history  of  the  church  and  its  doctrines 
is  a  constant  testimony  to  the  reality  and  central  authority  of  the 
Incarnation. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OF    TliE    INCARNATION   AS    CONNECTED   WITH   THE   WHOLE    OP   THE    THEO- 
LOGICAL  SYSTEM,    AND   AS   VIEWED    BY   DIFFERENT   PARTIES. 

I. — The  lowest  view  is  the  Socinian,  Humanitarian  theory. 
According  to  this,  the  Incarnation,  if  at  all  acknowledged,  is 
held  to  have  only  the  design  of  giving  us  an  example,  or 
(Socinus)  to  confer  immortality,  or,  to  teach  that  God  is  favor- 
able to  man,  is  a  Father,  and  that  immortality  is  a  fact.  The- 


370  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

whole  sense  and  meaning  of  the  Incarnation  is  ethical,  tc 
communicate  truth. 

II. — The  Roman  Catholic  view.  The  Son  of  God  became 
man;  through  the  sacraments  we  receive  Him,  as  grace;  we 
become  partakers  of  his  very  body  and  blood,  by  the  transub- 
Btantiation  of  the  elements.  Thus  we  are  united  with,  grow  up 
into  his  humanity.  (Modification  in  Consubstantiation.) 

III. — The  Oxford  view.  The  sacramental  system.  The  sac- 
raments are  an  extension  of  the  Incarnation,  channels  of  grace. 
The  Holy  Spirit  is  given  through  them.  Neither  transubstanti- 
ation  nor  consubstantiation  is  advocated,  but  a  real,  spiritual, 
mysterious  reception  of  Christ's  humanity,  as  much  as  we  receive 
humanity  from  Adam  in  the  way  of  natural  descent.1 

IV. — The  Spiritual  Life  Theory.  Discarding  sacramental 
systems,  and  holding  to  the  fact  of  union  with  Christ,  this  view 
is  distinguished  by  the  position,  that  we  receive  through  the 
Incarnation,  directly  from  Christ,  through  his  Spirit,  a  new 
spiritual  life.  And  the  communication  of  such  a  life  is  the 
grand  object  for  which  Christ  came.  The  Atonement  is  merged 
in  the  Incarnation.  Life,  life  from  Christ,  real  and  true  life,  is 
the  great  fact  of  the  Incarnation.  So  Coleridge,  Bushnell,  etc. 
Redemption  is  resolved  into  regeneration. 

V. — The  Incarnation  simply  and  chiefly  has  respect  to  Christ's 
atoning  death.  The  Arminian  View.  The  Exhibition  Theory 
or  Governmental  Theory.  This  view  denies  the  reality  of  the 
union  with  Christ,  and  of  justification  on  the  ground  of  this 
union.  It  resolves  the  union  into  a  metaphor.  It  says  sub- 
stantially this:  The  real  truth  in  the  case  is,  that  we  become 
like  Christ  by  choosing  the  same  end  as  He  did,  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  good  of  man.  We  become  like  Him  morally,  in 
having  the  same  states  of  heart  and  will.  This  is  all  the  union 

1  Tracts  for  the  Day.  "The  Eucharist  is  the  complement  of  the  Incarnation, 
which  began  in  the  union  of  God  with  man's  nature,  and  culminates  in  the 
union  of  individual  men  with  God."  In  the  Eucharist  there  is  a  "union  between 
the  Person  of  Christ  and  the  elements  of  bread  and  wine;  so  that  it  may  be  said, 
without  a  metaphor,  that  there  is  a  renewal  or  continuation  of  the  Incarnation" 
(No.  59,  Tracts  for  the  Day).  "The  sacrifice  of  Christ  is  not  once  for  all  and  com* 
plete,  but  continuous."  Neither  Transubstantiation  nor  Consubstantiation  is  ac- 
cepted, for  these  seem  to  define  the  work. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF  371 

that  exists.  His  atonement  removed  an  obstacle  out  of  the  way ; 
we  rely  on  that  atonement — not  on  Him,  but  on  the  atonement, 
and  thereupon  God  pardons  us.  Justification  is  this :  God  accepts 
us  as  holy,  so  far  as  we  are ;  and  justifies  us  because  He  foresees 
or  has  determined  that  we  shall  become  perfectly  so,  by  and 
by.  All  the  relation  of  the  Incarnation  to  us  is,  that  it  excites 
feelings,  susceptibilities,  more  than  anything  else  could  well  do, 
and  thus  incites  us  to  choose  right.  It  presents  to  us  an  affecting 
exhibition  of  God's  love  of  us  and  hatred  of  sin,  and  so  moves 
us  to  come  to  Him  in  penitence  and  faith. 

VI. — The  general  Protestant  view.  Union  with  Christ  as 
the  ground  of  our  Justification  and  Sanctification.  By  faith, 
through  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  are  united  to 
Christ  (the  mystical  union),  whereby  we  are  both  justified  and 
renewed,  all  through  the  direct  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
The  great  fact  in  objective  Christianity  is  the  Incarnation  of  a 
Redeemer:  the  great  fact  in  Bubjective  Christianity  is  our  union 
with  Him  by  and  through  his  Spirit.  Sacraments  are  expres- 
sions, primarily,  not  vehicles  of  grace.  To  the  new  life  the 
Incarnation  has  the  same  relation  that  Creation  has  to  the  old: 
it  is  the  second  great  act  of  the  Logos,  the  center  of  his  spiritual 
kingdom,  for  which  the  whole  of  the  old  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain.  And  the  Redemption  in  Christ  has  the  same 
relation  to  our  renewed  state  that  the  Fall  in  Adam  has  to  our 
depraved  state.  The  Incarnation  has  the  same  position  in  Re- 
vealed, that  Creation  has  in  Natural,  Theology. 

VII. — Outside  of  specific  Christianity.  The  Incarnation  is 
true  in  idea,  i.  e.,  the  union  of  the  divine  and  human,  but  this 
union  is  not  in  one  Person,  but  in  the  whole  race.1  Divinity 
and  humanity  are  different  aspects  of  the  same  substance,  the 
absolute  substance.  God  comes  to  consciousness  in  men.  Men 
at  death  are  resolved  into  this  universal  substance. 

1  Sometimes  put  in  this  form:  "  The  divine  ideas  which  had  wandered  up  and 
down  the  world,  till  oftentimes  they  had  forgotten  themselves  and  their  origin, 
did  at  length  clothe  themselves  in  nesh  and  blood;  they  became  incarnate  with  th« 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God.  In  his  life  and  person,  the  idea  and  fact  at  length 
kissed  each  other,  and  were  henceforth  wedded  for  evermore." 


372  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

REMARKS  on  these  different  theories  as  to  the  place  and  pur- 
pose of  the  Incarnation. 

Every  theological  system  must  meet  the  questions  raised  by 
the  Incarnation,  somewhere  and  somehow,  and  must  show  that 
it  is  a  necessary  constituent  of  the  system.  For  all  religion  has 
respect  to  the  relation  between  God  and  man;  its  ultimate  prob- 
lems and  questions  are  in  this  relation,  are  on  this  point.  And 
especially  must  every  system  meet  the  question  as  to  this  relation 
between  God  and  man  so  far  as  it  is  affected  by  sin,  and  every  sys- 
tem must  find  its  center  in  the  point,  how  the  relations  between 
God  and  a  sinful  world  are  to  be  restored,  to  be  readjusted.  In 
ether  words,  religion  being  essentially  union  between  God  and 
man,  the  central  inquiry  of  theology  is  this:  how  is  the  lost  com- 
munion between  God  and  man  to  be  restored,  how  is  the  reunion 
to  be  accomplished.  And  the  different  views,  as  above  presented, 
as  found  in  the  different  and  chief  theological  systems,  say  in 
substance  (adopting  a  little  different  order  of  statement),  as  fol- 
lows, in  reply  to  this  inquiry.  In  order  to  this  restoration : 

1.  It  is  enough  for  God  to  come  and  teach  men  his  goodness, 
and  assure  them  of  immortality; 

2.  Man  is  to  be  restored,  only  as  he  partakes  of  the  very  flesh 
and  blood  of  Christ,  through  the  transubstantiated  elements; 

3.  — only  as  he  partakes  of  the  divine  humanity  of  Christ 
(not  his  literal  flesh  and  blood)  through  the  sacraments ; 

4.  — only  by  partaking  of  the  life  of  Christ,  not  necessarily 
through  the  intervention  of  the  sacraments; 

5.  — only  through  justification  before  God  as  a  Moral  Gov- 
ernor, on  the  ground  of  Christ's  atonement,  of  which  justification 
by  faith  is  the  instrument,  uniting  the  believer  to  Christ,  whicl 
faith  is  the  regenerating  gift  of  God's  Spirit; 

6.  — only  (as  above)  on  the  ground  of  our  justification, 
which  justification  is,  however,  =  pardon,  which  justification  also, 
does  not  include  a  real  union  with  Christ.     The  Incarnation,  in 
this  view,  is  to  exhibit  God's  hatred  of  sin  and  love  of  the  sinner 
and  not  to  effect  a  real  union  between  God  and  man. 

(We  do  not  dwell  on  the  naturalistic  and  pantheistic  hypoth- 
eses here,  because  they  are  out  of  the  pale  of  Christian  theology. ) 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  373 


CHAPTER  VII. 

OP    THE    INCARNATION    ON    PHILOSOPHICAL    GROUNDS,    AS    RELATED    TO 

THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    RELIGION,     AND    TO    THE    CONFLICT 

BETWEEN    CHRISTIANITY    AND    PHILOSOPHY. 

In  the  question,  Has  the  Son  of  God  become  Incarnate  for 
the  Redemption  of  the  world,  the  whole  of  the  Christian  system 
centers.  Upon  the  decision  of  this  question  rests  the  fate  of 
Christianity,  as  a  distinctive  religious  system,  as  the  absolute 
and  perfect  religion,  i.  e.,  of  Christianity  as  compared  with 
all  other  systems  of  faith,  and  also  its  fate,  as  compared  with 
philosophy. 

Two  propositions  are  to  be  maintained  here: 

I.  The  question  comes  up  in  relation  to  the  philosophy  of 
Christianity,  where  it  is  to  I5e  shown  that  the  Christian  is  the 
perfect  form  of  religion,  because  it  centers  and  culminates  in 
the  Incarnation,  i.  e.,  in  the  position  that  in  the  Person  of  Christ 
we  have  an  Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  for  the  redemption  of 
the  race. 

II.  — in  relation  to  the  conflict  between   Philosophy  and 
Faith.     The  superiority  of  Christianity  to  any  system  of  mere 
philosophy  is  also  found  in  the  same  position,  since,  in  Christ 
and  his  work,  we  have  a  system  more  complete,  better  adapted 
to  man's  moral,  spiritual,  and  intellectual  wants  than  philosophy, 
without  it,  can  possibly  ofFer. 

The  Christian  Religion  is  the  most  perfect  religion. 
It  also  contains  the  highest  philosophy. 

§  1.  As  to  the  Philosophy  of  Christianity. 

The  Incarnation  gives  us  the  Philosophy  of  Christianity,  as 
the  most  perfect  religion.  The  proof  of  this  position  is  to  be 
conducted  on  two  grounds:  historical  and  comparative. 

1  Historical.  It  is  to  be  shown,  in  the  way  of  historical  tes- 
timony, on  the  basis  of  the  history  of  religions,  (a.)  that  the 
Christian  system,  under  the  divine  plan,  has  always  existed  in 


374  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

its  elements,  as  type,  etc.,  in  human  history;  (b.)  also,  on  tLe 
same  historical  ground,  that  the  other  religions,  under  the  di- 
vine guidance,  so  far  as  human  history  has  advanced,  have  been 
tending  towards,  have  led  to,  Christianity,  to  the  Incarnation 
for  Kedemption,  as  their  historic  consummation. 

2.  The  Comparative  line  of  argument.  To  show  (as  in  Com- 
parative Philology,  etc.,)  (a.)  that  Christianity  contains  all  the 
truth  which  is  felt  after  in  other  religions,  (b.)  in  a  more  perfect 
form,  (c.)  and  other,  most  needed,  facts  and  truths,  which  can- 
not be  found  in  any  other  form  of  religion;  and,  that  these  are 
found  in  the  Person  and  work  of  Christ,  where  the  superiority 
of  the  Christian  system  is  alone  fully  manifested.1 

NOTE. — For  the  completion  of  the  Philosophy  of  Christianity, 
there  would  also  be  needed  a  comparison  of  the  different  sys- 
tems of  Christian  theology,  in  the  different  sects,  etc.,  in  order 
to  find  which  one  of  them  was  most  complete,  most  Scriptural 
and  most  practical,  and  so  best  fitted  to  attain  the  ends  of  the 
Christian  system,  the  subjugation  of  man  to  the  service  of  Christ. 
The  Augustinian-Calvinistic-Edwardean. 

§  2.  In  the  Incarnation  we  have  tJie  Means  of  adjusting  the  Con- 
flict between  Christianity  and  Philosophy. 

A  different  question  comes  up  when  we  come  to  the  conflict 
between  philosophy  and  faith,  between  Philosophy  and  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  no  longer  a  comparison  of  Religions  among 
themselves,  as  in  the  Philosophy  of  Christianity,  but  it  is  a 
comparison  of  the  whole  of  Christianity  with  the  whole  of  Phi- 
losophy, in  order  to  show  that  the  Christian  system  not  only  is 
the  highest  form  of  faith,  but  also  contains  the  highest  form  of 
philosophy,  that  the  philosophy  of  Christianity  is  the  highest  philos- 
ophy. The  question  here  is:  Where  shall  we  find  the  ultimate 
and  complete  system,  adapted  to  all  man's  wants  and  needs,  for 
time  and  for  eternity, — philosophy  as  the  guide  of  life  ? 

As  between  philosophy  and  religion  in  general,  the  question 
reduces  itself  to  that  between  philosophy  and  Christianity. 

1  [See  Introduction  to  Christian  Theology  :  Philosophical  Apologetics.] 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  375 


As  between  philosophy  and  Christianity,  it  is  really, 
mately,  a  question  between  Christianity  and  Pantheism,  "Christ 
or  Spinoza."  Deism,  atheism,  and  other  forms  of  infidelity  are 
swallowed  up  in  pantheism.  The  present  tendency  is  to  an  al- 
liance between  pantheistic  philosophy,  extreme  democracy,  and 
infidel  socialism  against  the  whole  Christian  system,  —  fully  de- 
veloped in  Europe,  rapidly  approximating  in  this  country. 

1.  The  preliminary  questions,  in  speculative  thought,  between 
Christianity  and  Pantheism. 

(a.)  The  fact  of  sin,  as  a  moral  evil,  in  opposition  to  the  pan- 
theistic view,  that  sin  is  to  be  resolved  into  a  mere  natural 
necessity,  a  stage  in  the  progress  of  the  race. 

(6.)  The  fact  of  the  being  of  a  personal  deity,  the  intelligent 
and  moral  governor  of  the  universe. 

(c.)  The  possibility  and  the  fact  of  a  supernatural  revelation, 
through  teachers,  authenticated  by  miracles,  and  recorded. 

(d.)  The  fact  that  in  Jesus  Christ,  divinity  and  humanity  are 
united,  and  the  world's  redemption  is  achieved. 

(e.)  The  fact  of  immortality  —  that  man  is  to  exist  hereafter  as 
well  as  here  —  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  not  to  be  realized 
here  on  earth.  • 

These  are  the  chief  points.  In  establishing  these  it  is  neces- 
sary to  show  —  as  is  proved  by  fact:  (1)  That  the  common  or- 
thodox view  on  these  points  is  the  only  one  which  will  be  of 
any  avail  against  pantheism:  Deism.  Pelagianism,  Unitarian- 
ism,  cannot  make  headway  against  the  philosophic  vigor  and 
completeness  of  the  pantheistic  system  ;  (2)  and,  that  the  ortho- 
dox view  of  these  points  gives  us  a  system,  centering  in  the 
Person  and  Work  of  Christ,  more  rational,  more  complete,  more 
adapted  to  man's  wants,  than  any  to  which  the  pantheistic  phi- 
losophy can  pretend. 

2.  Superiority  of  Christianity  to  Pantheism. 

The  Incarnation,  on  philosophical  grounds,  gives  us  the  high- 
est possible  system,  one  higher  than  any  which  philosophy  can 
pretend  to.  This  is  to  be  shown  in  the  following  particulars: 

(a.)  As  to  the  fundamental  problem  of  all  religion  and  of  all 
philosophy,  viz.,  how  can  divinity  and  humanity  be  united,  the 


376  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Christian  system  gives  us,  in  the  Person  of  Christ,  that  union  in 
a  more  perfect  form  than  can  be  found  elsewhere.  Pantheism 
gives  us  only  the  union  in  idea,  of  something  divine  with  some- 
thing human.  Christianity  gives  us  the  union  in  fact  and  com- 
plete, in  a  personal  form — the  best  and  highest.  And  through 
faith  in  Christ  men  also  are  made  participants  in  this  union. 
Such  is  the  philosophical  value  of  the  Incarnation, 

(b.)  As  to  the  fundamental  moral  problem,  the  highest  we 
can  conceive,  viz.,  how  can  a  sinful  being  be  reconciled  to  a 
holy  God,  how  can  a  sinful  nature  be  changed:  Christianity,  in 
the  work  of  Christ,  as  applied,  gives  us  the  solution  of  this  in 
the  most  perfect  way  (justification  arid  regeneration);  meets  and 
solves  the  problem;  and  Christianity  alone  does  this;  while  the 
Pantheistic  system  is  obliged  to  ignore  the  problem,  and  resolve 
sin  into  a  necessary  stage  of  development,  thus  annulling  the 
dictates  of  our  moral  nature;  and  reconciliation  into  the  mere 
reconciliation  between  man  and  nature,  or  man  and  his  fellow- 
beings,  so  that  selfishness  is  lost  in  good-will. 

(c.)  As  to  the  highest  question  about  man  as  a  social  being, 
as  made  for  social  fellowship  and  communion,  it  may  be  shown 
in  the  same  way,  that  the  Christian  system  gives  us  the  most 
complete  view,  in  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  established 
in  the  world  for  its  redemption,  centering  in  Christ  as  its  Head 
and  Lord.  The  question  raised  by  all  thinkers,  giving  rise  to 
schemes  of  republics,  to  Utopias,  to  socialism,  etc.,  is  met  and  an- 
swered in  the  Christian  system,  as  in  no  other,  wherein  men  are 
not  merely  united  with  each  other,  but  with  God,  through  Christ, 
in  his  kingdom — a  moral  kingdom,  where  love  reigns.  To  the 
possibility  and  actuality  of  such  a  kingdom,  the  Incarnation  has 
intimate  and  necessary  relations. 

(d.)  As  to  the  final  question,  in  all  philosophy  as  well  as  in 
all  religion :  What  is  the  destiny  of  each  man  and  of  the  race  ? 
here,  too,  Christianity  evinces  its  inherent  superiority.  The 
kingdom  which  it  discloses  is  an  eternal  kingdom,  begun  here, 
perfected  hereafter:  our  aspirations  and  hopes  of  immortality  are 
encouraged  and  fortified,  and  a  future  is  held  out  in  the  endless 
progression  of  this  kingdom  of  God  in  Christ,  such  as  naught 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  377 

else  can  offer.  And  this  too  centers  in  the  truth  of  Incarnation 
in  order  to  Redemption. 

Every  system  of  philosophy  must  meet  and  solve  these  four 
problems:  they  are  fundamental  in  respect  to  man  and  to  the 
universe.  Every  system  must  give  some  answer  to  the  questions 
which  these  four  raise.  The  most  perfect  system  is  that  which 
gives  the  completest  and  most  satisfactory  answer. 

Our  position  then  is  this:  that  as  the  Christian  system,  in  its 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  in  order  to  Redemption,  meets  and 
answers  all  these  four  problems,  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner, 
it  is  thereby  proved  to  contain  the  highest  system  of  philosophy 
as  well  as  to  be  the  most  perfect  form  of  religion. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

COMPARISON   OF   THE   INCARNATION   WITH    SOME    OTHER   FACTS   AS    GIVING 
THE    CENTRAL   IDEAS   OF   THE    CHRISTIAN   SYSTEM. 

I. — Comparison  of  Divine  Sovereignty  and  The  Incarnation 
as  central  principles. 

Calvinistic  theology  has  had — unconsciously  for  the  most 
part — two  germinant  principles:  Sovereignty  and  The  Covenants; 
the  former  the  older,  the  latter  more  narrow,  but  with  some  ad- 
vantages. In  the  Confessions  we  often  see  an  unconscious 
union  of  the  two.  Sovereignty  tends  to  run  into  supralapsa- 
rianism  and  the  assertion  of  the  exclusive  divine  efficiency:  Will 
is  made  to  be  all ;  the  ethical  is  obscured.  The  objections  to  it 
are:  (a.)  It  is  too  abstract;  (6.)  It  is  liable  to  perversion,  to  the 
construction  that  God  is  all  Will;  (c.)  If  it  is  taken  concretely, 
i.  e.,  if  the  Sovereignty  is  understood  to  stand  for  Plan,  it  comes 
to  much  the  same  with  our  principle:  Incarnation  in  order  to 
Redemption  is  God's  Plan. 

II. — Comparison  of  The  Incarnation  and  The  Covenants,  as 
the  central  principles. 

1.  The  original  usage  of  The  Covenant,  in  theology,  as  set- 


378  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ting  forth  an  arrangement,  an  ordering,  on  the  part  of  God,  ii 
allowable  and  true. 

2.  As  applied  in  the  Covenant  of  Works:  "  This  do  and  thou 
shalt  live,"  we  may  say,  It  is  as  if  there  was  such  a  covenant. 

3.  As  applied  in  the  Covenant  of  Redemption,  that  between 
the  Father  and  the  Son,  it  sets  forth  clearly,  for  popular  represen- 
tation, that  in  the  divine  plan,  Christ  performs  conditions  and 
his  people  are  given  to   Him  in  consequence.     (Only  in  this 
Covenant  there  should  be  included  all  that  Christ's  work  ac- 
complished:  Propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  and 
the  General  Offer  of  Salvation  as  well  as  the  Provision  for  the 
Elect.) 

4.  Applied  as  the  central,  constitutive  principle  of  theology, 
it  is  hardly  satisfactory,     (a.)  In  respect  to  the  Covenant  of 
Works,  there  is  a  lack  of  historical  foundation  for  anything  be- 
yond the  divine  announcement  and  pledge  in  respect  to  the  con- 
sequences of  obedience  and  disobedience,     (b.)  In  respect  to 
The  Covenant  of  Redemption  (between  the  Father  and  the  Son), 
it  easily  degenerates  into  the  semblance  of  a  commercial  trans- 
action,    (c.)  In  respect  to  The  Covenant  of  Grace  (the  Covenant 
of  God  with  his  people),  it  is  not  really  directly  with  them,  but 
with  them  in  Christ,     (d.)  In  respect  to  both  these  last,  there  is 
a  difficulty  on  account  of  the  confusion  resulting;  we  have  to 
use  "  conditions  "  in  a  different  sense  in  the  two :  in  The  Covenant 
of  Redemption,  Christ's  sacrifice  is  the  condition  of  the  promise; 
in  The  Covenant  of  Grace,  faith  and  obedience  are  the  conditions, 
but  in  the  latter  the  sense  of  "conditions"  is  not  the  same  as  in 
the  former:  in  the  former  the  sense  of  "condition"  is — the  pro- 
curing, meritorious  cause,  in  the  latter,  it  is — the  occasional 
cause,  merely  a  sine  qua  non,  not  meritorious. 

5.  It  is  better  for  theology  to  state  as  its  central  principle 
the  essential  and  fundamental  fact  of  the  case. 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  379 


CHAPTER    IX. 

OF   THE   INCAKNATION   AS   THE   UNFOLDING   OF   THE   POSSIBILITIES 
OF   HUMAN   NATURE.       THE   SECOND   ADAM. 

"  The  secret  of  Man  is  the  secret  of  the  Messiah."  > 

"  The  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ "  2 

"Complete  in  Him."3 

Man's  nature,  need,  and  destiny  are,  so  to  speak,  wrapped  up 
in  Christ.  The  secrets  of  our  own  inmost  being,  the  enigmas 
of  our  destiny,  are  revealed  to  us  in  Christ  and  in  Him  alone. 
Life  is  a  maze;  and  we  do  not  find  the  clue  to  guide  us  safely 
through  until  we  find  Christ.  Life  is  an  enigma,  and  the  word  that 
solves  the  enigma  is  Christ,  the  Word  of  God.  When  we  know 
Christ  we  know  what  we  are,  and  are  made  to  be;  and  out  of 
Him  we  grope  in  darkness  and  conjectures.  When  Christ  is 
revealed  to  us,  we  are  also  revealed  to  ourselves.  Only  in  Him 
can  we  unveil  the  secret  and  scan  the  end  of  our  destiny.  We 
are  complete  in  Him. 

I. — We  know  ourselves  only  as  we  know  the  end  of  our  being, 
and  this  knowledge  is  given  to  us  chiefly  in  and  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

Socrates  was  thought  to  have  received  from  the  gods  the 
immortal  and  searching  precept,  "  Know  thyself."  He  awakened 
the  inquisitive  Athenians  to  self-reflection  and  moral  conscious- 
ness. Bat  he  could  not  probe  the  depths  of  human  nature,  be- 
cause he  had  no  definite  conception  of  the  great  end  for  which 
man  was  made — to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever  in  a 
divine  kingdom.  He  inculcated  at  the  best  only  a  kind  of  in- 
tellectual morality  and  sincerity :  he  could  not  pierce  the  sky 
and  see  the  Father  of  all,  nor  unveil  the  future  to  descry  the 
destiny  of  man.  And  so,  he  could  not  lead  to  the  highest  self- 
knowledge,  because  he  had  not  the  instruments  and  truths  with 
which  to  ply  the  soul,  and  extract  all  its  secrets.  If  we  are  to 
have  the  true  estimate  of  life,  we  must  know  the  true  end  of  life. 

»  Jewish  Proverb.  2  Eph.  iv.  13.  3  Col.  ii.  10. 


o80  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

And  this  the  great  Teacher  of  our  race,  and  He  alone,  was 
able  to  declare  unto  us.  For  he  came  forth  from  the  Father, 
and  abode  in  tabernacles  of  clay,  that  He  might  disclose  to  us 
the  way  of  coming  to  eternal  life.  He  revealed  God  to  a  sinful, 
doubting,  despairing  race  as  "our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven." 
He  taught  us  to  pray  to  Him  in  those  hallowed  words  which 
children  learn  by  heart  and  sages  cannot  fathom.  He  told  in 
His  own  words  and  taught  by  his  own  example,  how  the  suffer- 
ings, trials,  and  woes  of  time  may  at  last  but  enhance  the  joys, 
the  peace,  and  the  blessed  rest  of  eternity.  He  led  us  to  see 
that  this  earth  is  our  pilgrimage  and  heaven  our  home.  And  by 
thus  setting  before  us,  in  the  simplest  terms,  the  greatest  end  of 
life,  He  has  taught  us  the  real  meaning  of  life.  And  in  disclos- 
ing to  us  this  blessed  reality  He  made  us  to  know  ourselves.  For 
no  man  knows  himself  until  he  knows  what  He  may  attain  unto. 
The  glories  of  heaven  instruct  us  about  the  things  of  earth;  only 
in  the  light  of  eternity  do  we  rightly  read  the  events  of  time. 

II. — We  know  ourselves  only  as  we  know  the  law  for  which 
we  were  made.  This  knowledge  is  given  to  us  most  fully  in 
Christ.  He  is  not  only  the  living  Gospel :  He  is  also  the  living 
Law.  He  republished  the  Law  of  God  in  all  its  purity  and  sanc- 
tity, and  taught  us  its  inmost  meaning  by  His  own  perfect 
obedience  to  it.  He  came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  He  un- 
folded the  law  in  its  length  and  breadth,  in  its  letter  and  its 
spirit,  in  its  rewards  and  its  penalties — up  to  the  judgment  of 
the  last  assize.  And  He  so  interpreted  that  law  to  the  human 
conscience  and  the  human  heart,  and  He  so  exemplified  it  in  His 
whole  incarnate  life,  that  it  really,  in  and  through  Him,  became 
fully  known  to  the  human  race  as  the  law  of  life. 

And  when  this  perfect  law  was  unfolded  before  the  vision  of 
the  human  race,  it  was  like  a  deeper  moral  consciousness,  pene- 
trating below  the  surface  of  our  common  thoughts  and  aims, 
and  disclosing  to  us  our  inner,  even  our  inmost  selves.  For 
when  man  comes  to  know  the  law  aright,  then  he  also  knows 
himself  aright;  he  sees  what  he  ought  to  be:  that  he  ought  to  be 
holy  in  all  his  desires  and  thoughts  and  acts,  and  that  as  long 
as  he  is  not  thus  pure  he  has  failed  of  attaining  the  great  end 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF. 

for  which  he  was  made.  For  the  law  is  made  for  man's  soul  as 
much  as  light  is  made  for  man's  eyes;  and  to  let  the  light  of  the 
law  upon  the  soul  is  a  revelation  no  less  clear  and  distinct  than 
to  let  the  light  of  the  visible  sun  in  upon  eyes  that  ma^  long 
have  had  a  film  gathering  over  them. 

Our  blessed  Lord  gave  us  the  law,  not  only  in  words,  but  also 
in  His  life  He  was  the  embodied  law,  because  He  was  love  in- 
carnate, obedient  even  unto  death.  His  perfect  example  was  an 
example  of  perfect  obedience.  And  thus,  in  giving  to  man  the  law 
in  its  highest  interpretation,  and  exemplifying  its  spirit  in  His 
own  matchless  and  perfect  obedience,  He  has  revealed  to  us 
what  we  are  and  ought  to  be;  He  has  set  before  us  a  pattern  to 
show  us  what  it  is  to  be  a  perfect  man;  He  has  taught  us  to 
measure  ourselves  by  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness 
of  Christ. 

III. — We  cannot  know  ourselves  truly  until  we  know  the 
misery  and  guilt  of  sin,  of  which  we  are  all  partakers.  And 
Christ  has  also  taught  us  to  read  this  lesson,  that  He  may  be- 
come our  great  Deliverer.  Human  misery  and  guilt  were  not 
indeed  first  disclosed  by  the  Messiah ;  for  the  experience  of  that 
misery  and  the  consciousness  of  that  guilt  are  the  common  heri- 
itage  of  all  the  race.  But  the  knowledge  of  our  wretchedness, 
which  is  given  by  nature,  is  a  knowledge  without  hope,  tending 
to  recklessness  or  despair.  While  the  knowledge  which  Christ 
imparts  pierces  and  troubles  the  soul  that  it  may  purge  and 
purify  it. 

One  striking  fact  about  human  misery  and  wretchedness, 
brought  out  by  the  Gospel  as  by  no  other  agency,  is,  that  the 
sense  of  our  wretchedness  is  almost  always  accompanied  by  a 
sense  of  the  dignity  and  grandeur  of  our  nature.  "Our  grief 
is  but  our  grandeur  in  disguise."  Along  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  sinful  condition,  giving  to  it  its  sharpest  stings, 
is  an  inalienable  conviction  that  this  is  not  our  real  self,  that 
though  it  be  our  common  heritage,  it  is  not  the  end  of  our 
being.  Brutes  may  suffer  and  die,  without  remorse,  without 
hope,  without  despair.  But  so  it  cannot  be  with  man ;  he  has 
remorse  for  the  past,  and  fear  or  hope  for  the  future.  And  this 


382  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  because,  made  originally  in  the  image  of  God,  that  image  is 
still  and  ever  before  the  eye  of  reason  and  of  conscience, 
though  the  heart  and  will  be  fixed  on  inferior  and  transient  de- 
lights. Man  is  a  sinner,  condemned  to  death ;  and  the  condem- 
nation is  so  terrible  because  he  was  made  not  to  die,  but  to  live 
forever;  though  he  might  aspire  to  a  throne,  he  walks  to  a 
scaffold,  and  the  scaffold  becomes  awful  because  it  has  such  a  re- 
gal victim ;  awful  even  though,  yea  because,  the  condemnation 
is  just. 

And  when  the  divine  law,  as  interpreted  and  applied  by  Christ 
reaches  to  the  very  depths  of  man's  consciousness  of  sin ;  when  it 
sets  before  him  its  inviolable  sanctity  and  its  irreversible  obli- 
gations ;  when  it  forces  him  against  his  will  to  test  himself  by 
its  solemn  and  searching  light;  when  it  reveals  the  depths  of 
his  sin  and  guilt,  far  'below  the  careless,  worldly  thoughts  and 
feelings  that  usually  engross  and  blind  the  soul :  when  sin  by 
the  commandment  becomes  exceeding  sinful,  and  is  pictured  in 
all  its  blackness  upon  the  vivid  stainless  background  of  this  im- 
perial rule  of  rectitude ;  then  it  is  that  man  comes  to  know  him- 
self, to  know  himself  as  a  sinner,  as  a  sinner  not  only  against  a 
holy  law,  but  also  against  a  holy  God,  to  know  the  terrible 
power  of  his  depravity  as  clinging  to  the  very  roots  of  his  being. 

(This  certainly  is  not  the  only  way  in  which  Christ  reads  to 
us  the  lesson  of  our  woe,  and  of  our  guilt.  We  have  to  look  for- 
ward to  the  subject  not  yet  considered,  His  atoning  work,  to 
see  where  it  is  that  He  impresses  this  lesson  most  vividly  upon 
the  soul.  If  man,  at  the  cross  of  Christ,  will  not  see  his  wretch- 
edness and  his  doom,  then  on  that  cross  he  cannot  see  his  par- 
don and  his  peace.  There  is  no  redemption,  if  there  be  no 
condemnation.  We  must  know  ourselves  to  be  sinners,  if  we 
would  know  Christ  as  a  Saviour). 

And  so,  in  the  mystery  of  sin  is  revealed  to  us  the  mystery 
of  our  being.  In  an  eminent  sense  it  holds  true  that  the  se- 
cret of  man  is  the  secret  of  the  Messiah.1 

1  It  is  related  of  Pascal,  that  he  always  carried  with  him  a  paper  on  which  were 
written  these  simple  and  broken  words:  "  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob, 
not  of  philosophers  and  the  learned.  Certainty,  certainty,  feeling  [sentiment], 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  383 

IV.  The  same  holds  true,  of  course,  of  the  final  perfection  of 
our  human  nature,  in  its  completed  and  glorified  state.     The 
destiny  of  man  in  Christ  is  to  come  to  the  measure  of  the  statura 
of  his  fulness.     Christ  is  the  very  ideal  of  humanity  realized. 
Even  in  a  human  point  of  view,  He  is  the  consummate  flower 
of  the  human  race,  a  character  unique  in  wisdom,  love,  and 
holiness.1 

V.  Not  only  in  the  individual  life  and  individual  perfection 
does  this  relation  subsist  between  man  and  Christ,  but  it  also 
holds  of  man  as  a  whole,  of  the  collective  race,  of  man  in  his- 
tory.    We  are  aU  to  come  into  the  unity  of  the  faith  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  Son  of  God. 

That  which  enables  us  to  explain  history  must  be  the  soul 
and  life  of  history.  History,  the  life  of  our  race,  is  also  the 
great  problem  and  enigma  of  our  race.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  this  mysterious  birth  of  the  human  race  upon  the  shores  of 
time  ?  What  is  to  be  its  future  destiny  here  on  earth  and  in 
the  inaccessible  night  of  eternity?  Here  is  the  question  of 
profoundest  import  to  all  the  members  of  our  race.  And  to 
this  question  the  only  reasonable  and  satisfying  answer  is  given 
us  in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ.  Infidel  writers  are  not 
able  to  find  any  other  center  to  human  history  than  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ.  In  point  of  fact,  the  whole  of  the  ancient  Jew- 
ish history,  in  type,  symbol,  and  prophecy,  pointed  to  the  Mes- 
siah, while  ancient  secular  history  was  prepared  by  Providence 
for  his  advent.  And  since  He  came,  his  kingdom  has  given  the 
law  to  all  other  kingdoms;  his  church  has  gone  on  conquering 
and  to  conquer.  And  here  is  an  incomparable  and  irrefragable 

joy,  peace,  God  of  Jesus  Christ."  And  then  followed  this  significant  phrase: 
"  Grandeur  of  the  human  soul !  "—And  indeed,  what  must  be  the  inherent  dignity 
of  a  nature  for  which  God  himself  puts  forth  all  the  resources  of  his  mighty  love, 
for  which  the  Son  of  God  could  die  upon  the  cross  of  Calvary  ?  What  must  have 
been  the  guilt  that  demanded  such  a  sacrifice;  what  must  be  the  blessedness  that 
could  warrant  such  a  sacrifice  ? 

1  This  is  confessed  even  by  those  who  deny  Him  to  be  anything  more  than 
man.  Thus  Renan  cannot  withhold  the  confession  that  "  He  is  the  incomparable 
man,  to  whom  the  universal  conscience  has  decreed  the  title  of  the  Son  of  God. 

and  this  too  with  justice Every  one  of  us  owes  to  him  that  which  is  best 

in  himself ! "  Weigh  those  last  words,  and  make  the  necessary  inferences.  Faitb 
to  Christ  becomes  our  highest  need,  life  in  Him  our  highest  blessedness. 


384  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

argument  for  the  dignity  of  the  Redeemer.  He  who  gives  the 
law  to  history  is  the  lawgiver  of  the  race.  In  Him,  and  in  Him 
alone,  the  secrets  of  humanity  are  hid,  its  enigmas  resolved,  its 
salvation  insured.  He  who  redeems  the  race  must  be  the  Head 
and  Lord  of  the  race.  The  whole  human  family  finds  its  cen- 
ter, its  crown,  its  peace,  in  Him.  "  Christianity,"  says  one  of 
the  Apostolic  Fathers,1  "  is  not  a  work  of  silence,  but  of  gran- 
deur," and  its  grandeur  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Christ  is  the 
center  of  history. 

Hence,  it  appears,  that  to  know  ourselves,  we  must  know 
Christ,  and  that  to  know  Christ  is  to  know  ourselves.  Just  as 
one  born  a  poet  does  not  know  the  full  stores  of  his  own  imag- 
ination until  he  has  read  Homer,  Dante,  Milton,  and  Shakespeare; 
just  as  the  sculptor  does  not  know  his  gift  in  art  until  he  has 
gazed  entranced  upon  the  matchless  products  of  Greek  and 
Roman  statuary;  just  as  the  young  Roman  painter,  when  stand- 
ing before  the  breathing  canvas  that  revealed  to  him  all  the 
power  of  the  pencil,  cried  out  in  wonder  "  I  too  am  a  painter"; 
— so  the  human  soul  may  gaze  on  all  other  forms,  linger  on  all 
other  impersonations  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  explore  all  art 
and  science,  but  until  it  stands  face  to  face  with  the  Lord  of  the 
race,  the  Saviour  of  the  lost,  it  knows  not,  it  cannot  know,  it 
feels  not,  it  cannot  feel,  all  the  height  and  depth  of  human  woe 
and  of  human  love,  all  the  soul's  boundless  capacities,  its  su- 
preme destiny.  The  hour  when  Christ  is  revealed  in  untroubled 
splendor  to  the  heart  and  mind,  is  the  hour  when  it  realizes  what 
it  is  arid  may  become.  In  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  it 
sees  that  it  may  arrive  at  the  perfection  of  manhood,  that  it 
may  attain  to  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  his  fulness. 

1  Ignatius.  Compare  our  own  Edwards:  The  work  of  Eedemption  is  a  work 
carried  on  in  two  respects:  "  (1)  in  its  effect  on  the  souls  of  the  redeemed;  this  re- 
mains the  same:  (2)  as  it  has  respect  to  the  grand  design  in  general,  as  it  respects  the 
universal  subject  and  end:  this  is  carried  on  from  the  fall  of  man  to  the  end  of  the 
world  in  a  different  manner,  not  merely  by  repeating  or  renewing  the  same  effects 
in  the  different  subjects  of  it,  but  by  many  successive  works  and  dispensations  of 
God,  all  tending  to  one  great  end  and  effect,  all  united  as  the  several  parts  of  8 
scheme,  and  all  together  making  up  one  great  work." 


PART  II. 

OP  THE  PEKSON  OP  THE  MEDIATOR.  THE  SON  OF  GOB 
MANIFEST  IN  THE  FLESH.  THE  GOD-MAN. 

"The  Word was  made  [became]  flesh."— JOHN  i.  14. 

The  subject  of  this  Part  of  the  Second  Division  is,  The  Doc- 
trine respecting  the  Person  of  Christ.  The  Proposition:  The 
Mediator  was  the  God-man.  Or,  In  Christ  as  One  Person  there 
is  the  Union  of  Two  Natures,  the  Divine  and  Human. 

There  is  a  full  and  careful  statement  of  the  doctrine  in  the 
Savoy  Confession  of  Faith  adopted  by  the  Synods  held  in  Bos- 
ton iii  1680,  and  at  Saybrook,  Conn.,  in  1708.  This  is  the  same 
as  the  Westminster  statement:  "The  Son  of  God,  the  Second 
Person  in  the  Trinity,  being  very  and  eternal  God,  of  one  sub- 
stance, and  equal  with  the  Father,  did,  when  the  fulness  of  time 
was  come,  take  upon  Him  noun's  nature,  with  all  the  essential 
properties  and  common  infirmities  thereof,  yet  without  sin:  be- 
ing conceived  of  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  womb  of 
tha  Virgin  Mary,  of  her  substance.  So  that  two  whole,  perfect, 
and  distinct  natures,  the  Godhead  and  the  manhood,  were  in- 
separably joined  together  in  one  person,  without  conversion, 
composition  or  confusion.  Which  person  is  very  God  and  very 
man,  yet  one  Christ,  the  only  mediator  between  God  and  man." 

See  West.  Conf,  c.  viii.  §  2;  Larg.  Cat.,  Q.  36-40;  Shorter  Cat., 
Q.  21,  22. 

It  is  a  fact  which  here  comes  into  view,  viz. :  The  Second 
Person  of  the  Trinity  assumed  human  nature,  and  by  this  as- 
sumption became  the  God-man,  uniting  both  the  divine  and 
human  natures  in  his  sacred  person. 

These  points  are  essential:  I.  Christ  is  both  human  and  di- 
vine; II.  Christ  is  one  person;  III.  This  Person  is  the  Second 

Person  of  the  Trinity. 

Scheme. 

CHAP.  I.— The  Teachings  of  Scripture  respecting  the  Person  of  the  God-man. 
CHAP.  II.— The  Partial  and  Conflicting  Representations:  Earlier  and  Later. 
CHAP.  III. — The  Objections  and  Difficulties  urged. 
CHAP.  IV.— The  Eesult  as  to  the  Entire  Person  of  our  Lord. 


386  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  SCRIPTURAL  TEACHINGS  RESPECTING  THE  PERSON  OP  THE  GOD-MAN. 

§  1.  The  general  Impression  of  the  Declarations  of  Scripture 
on  this  Point. 

In  the  Scriptures  Christ  is  described  by  a  series  of  the  most 
amazing  contrasts.  He  is  called  the  Son  of  David — yet  David  calls 
Him  Lord;  He  was  understood  to  claim  equality  with  the  Father 
— as  man  He  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head;  He  took  part  with 
flesh  and  blood — yet  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with 
God;  He  took  the  form  of  a  servant — yet  his  proper  form  was 
the  form  of  God;  He  tabernacled  in  the  flesh — yet  came  down 
from  heaven;  He  said  that  He  could  of  his  own  self  do  noth- 
ing— yet  He  is  said  to  be  the  Lord  of  all;  His  mother  is  called 
IVlary — yet  He  is  over  all,  God  blessed  forever;  He  was  born 
under  the  law  and  fulfilled  the  law — and  yet  in  his  own  name  gave 
a  new  and  more  perfect  law,  and  brought  in  a  new  and  everlast- 
ing righteousness;  He  was  received  into  heaven  out  of  the  sight 
of  his  disciples — yet  He  is  still  with  them,  with  any  two  or  three 
of  them,  always,  and  even  to  the  ends  of  the  earth;  He  was  found 
in  fashion  as  a  man — and  yet  is  the  image  of  the  invisible  God; 
He  hid  not  his  face  from  shame  and  spitting — though  He  be  the 
very  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory;  He  increased  in  wisdom 
— yet  knew  the  Father  even  as  the  Father  knew  Him;  He  in- 
creased in  stature — yet  is  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever; 
He  died  at  the  mandate  of  a  Roman  governor — yet  is  the  Prince 
of  the  kings  of  the  earth ;  He  could  say,  The  Father  is  greater 
than  I — yet  also  say,  I  and  my  Father  are  one,  he  that  hath 
seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father;  He  said  in  the  time  of  his  tempta- 
tion unto  Satan,  It  is  written,  Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy 
God,  and  Him  only  shalt  thou  serve — yet  He  also  declared  that 
all  men  should  honor  the  Son  even  as  they  honor  the  Father, 
and  of  Him  it  is  asserted  that  «vftry  knee  should  bow  to  Him 
and  every  tongue  confess  that  He  is  Lord  to  the  glory  of  God 
the  Father. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  387 

It  is  the  total  impression  derived  from  the  amplitude  and 
variety  of  such  expressions  as  these,  which  brings  the  surest 
and  truest  conviction  to  the  mind.  One  and  another  of  the 
terms  may  be  explained  away,  but  the  difficulty  is — we  have 
to  keep  explaining  away  one,  and  another,  and  yet  another. 
The  Bible  was  meant  for  and  is  adapted  to  the  average  under- 
standing and  religious  wants  of  men.  It  is  fertile  and  varied 
in  its  mode  of  bringing  out  the  same  truth.  And  the  natural 
and  total  impression  left  by  the  perusal  of  it  will  inevitably  be 
— that  Jesus  Christ  is  a  complex  personage,  that  He  was  a  man, 
yet  is  an  object  of  religious  worship. 

§  2.  The  Proof  from  Scripture  of  Christ's  Divinity. — This  has 
been  already  given  in  the  discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
It  is  referred  to  here  only  as  it  bears  upon  the  union  of  the  two 
natures  in  his  person. 

1.  That  such  a  Saviour,  Eedeemer  (a.)  was  to  come  and 
(b.)  did  come,  is  the  substance  of  the  Gospel-message;  it  is 
TO  svayyeXtov. 

"  The  first  annunciation  of  the  New  Testament,  Luke  i.  16, 
17,  was  in  reference  to  the  highest  and  last  prophecy  of  the  Old 
Testament,  Mai.  iv.  5,  6"  (Ebrard). 

The  second  annunciation — to  Mary — is  in  reference  to  the 
old  Messianic  prophecy  given  to  David  by  Nathan,  Luke  i.  32, 
"  and  the  Lord  God  shall  give  unto  Him  the  throne  of  his  father 
David";  2  Sam.  vii.  12,  13,  "and  I  will  establish  the  throne  of 
his  kingdom  forever." 

The  general  announcement — to  Joseph — Matt.  i.  21,  "and 
thou  shalt  call  his  name  JESUS:  for  He  shall  save  his  people 
from  their  sins." 

And  as  here  the  wonderful  office  is  set  forth,  so  immediately 
following  is  the  evangelist's  declaration  respecting  the  wonderful 
person,  as  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  Matt.  i.  22,  23.  This  is  pre- 
sented on  the  Old  Testament  basis.  Both  humanity  ("  the  Virgin 
shall  bring  forth  ")  and  divinity  ("shall  call  his  name  Imman- 
uel")  are  in  the  Old  Testament;  as  elements — ae  we  have  already 
seen.  (Lectures  on  the  Trinity.) 


388  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

2.  Titles  and  Comprehensive  Statements  as  to  the  Gospel. 
Mark  i.  1.     "  The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 

Son  of  God." 

John  i.  1-14  Especially,  vs.  14,  ;<And  the  Word  became 
Hesh." 

Rom.  i.  1,  3,  4     Especially,  vs.  4 

3.  The  appellation,  Son  of  Man,1  originating  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, adopted  by  Christ  as  the  designation  of  his  Messiahship, 
involving  both  in  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  divinity. 
Meyer:  By  Son  of  Man  "Jesus  means  to  designate  himself  aa 
Messiah, — not  referring  probably  to  Ps.  viii.,  but  to  Dan.  vii.  13." 
His  divinity  as  the  Son  of  Man  is  shown  in  his  coming  to  judg- 
ment in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

4  More  specifically  as  to  the  Old  Testament  representations 
of  the  Messiah. 

(a.)  Certainly  one  peculiarity  of  the  Old  Testament  religion 
was  its  (apparently)  almost  exclusive  national  character.  The 
covenant  with  Abraham;  covenant  at  Sinai;  the  Theocracy  for 
the  Israelites.2  But 

(b.)  It  had,  equally,  a  universal  cJiaracter.  The  idea  of  God 
as  One :  the  thoroughly  ethical  conditions  between  Israel  and  God ; 
especially  the  view  and  scope  of  prophecy. 

(c.)  The  union  of  these  two  is  the  essence  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  compared  with  any  other  ancient  religion.  It  is  characterized 
by  Nationality  and  Universality. 

(d.)  This  appears  most  clearly  in  the  fact  that  the  Messiah  is 
predicted  not  as  a  national  king  merely,  but  as  the  king  ruling 
from  Zion  over  all  nations,  and  again,  not  as  such  a  king  merely, 
but  also  as  the  prophet  and  priest  for  all  mankind:  Isa.  ii.  3;  xi. ; 
liii. ;  Ps.  xl. ;  ex. ;  Gen.  iii.  15 ;  xxii.  8 ;  xlix.  10 ;  Deut.  xviii.  18 ; 
Mic.  v.  2;  Hag.  ii.  7;  Mai.  iii.  1;  iv.  5,  6. 

1  Keil'a  Daniel,  p.  273,  Not,  mere  humanity.     The  phrase  is  used  only  by 
Jesus  of  himself,  while  on  earth.     So  Bengel  on  Matt.  xvi.  13,  "  Nemo  nisi  solus 
Christus,  a  nemine  dum  ipse  in  terra  ambularet,  nisi  a  semetipso,  appellatus  est 
filius  hominis."    Acts  vii.  56;  Eev.  i.  13;  xiv.  14;  are  passages  outside  the  gospels, 
and  borrowed  from  Dan.  vii.  13. 

2  See  Dr.  C.  von  Orelli,  Der  nationale  Charakter  der  alt-test  Eeligioru    Zti- 
rich,  1871. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  389 

5.  The  Old  Testament  as  authoritatively  interpreted  in  the 
New,  in  respect  to  this  point. 

(a.)  Christ  himself  asserts  that  He  was  foretold  as  Messiah: 
Matt  xx.  18;  xxvi.  54;  Mark  ix.  12;  Luke  xviii.  31;  xxii.  37; 
xxiv  27;  John  v.  39;  v.  46;  and  especially  the  great  office  and 
work  predicted  for  the  "  Son  of  Man,''  Matt.  xxvi.  64,  and  for 
"The  King"  and  "Son  of  Man,"  Matt.  xxv.  31-46. 

(b.)  The  Apostles  declare  the  same:  Acts  ii.  16;  ii.  25;  iii. 
18;  xiii.  27,  32;  xxvi.  22;  1  Pet.  i.  11;  2  Pet.  i.  19. 

Hence, — From  the  Old  Testament  itself,  and  from  the  inter- 
pretation of  it  by  the  New,  we  learn  that  the  Saviour  was  to  be 
divine  and  also  of  the  house  of  David, — a  man,  yet  of  prophetic, 
priestly,  and  regal  power,  beyond  all  that  mere  humanity  could 
aspire  to  or  wield.  This  is  fulfilled  in 

§  3.    The  Miraculous  Conception. 

(In  theological  usage,  "Miraculous  Conception"  refers  to 
Christ,  "Immaculate  Conception"  to  Mary.) 

1. — The  carefulness  of  Scripture  and  of  the  best  creed-state- 
ments, here. 

John  i.  14,  "The  word  was  made — became — flesh."  Heb.  ii. 
14,  "Forasmuch  then  as  the  children  are  partakers  of  flesh  and 
blood,  He  also  himself  likewise  took  part  of  the  same;"  Matt, 
i.  18, — "she  was  found  with  child  of  the  Holy  Ghost;"  Luke 
i.  35,  "The  Holy  Ghost  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power 
of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee:  wherefore  also  that  holy 
thing  which  shall  be  born  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God." 

Reflected  in  the  creed-statements:  West.  Shorter  Cat.,  Q  22, 
"  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  became  man,  by  taking  to  himself  a 
true  body  and  a  reasonable  soul,  being  conceived  by  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  born 
of  her,  yet  without  sin."  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
Art.  ii.  :'i;The  Son  ....  took  man's  nature  in  the  womb  of  the 
blessed  Virgin." 

How  must  we  think  of  this  conception  ? 

The  Saviour  must  be  sinless,  free  from  all  taint  of  original 
sin.  Hence,  (a.)  No  generation  in  the  ordinary  sense.  The 


390  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  assumed  human  nature  in  the 
womb  of  the  virgin;  (b.)  The  passivity  of  the  mother,  and  as- 
sumption of  human  nature  within  the  womb  entirely  by  tho 
power  of  the  Most  High;  (c.)  A  miraculous  proceeding,  in 
the  highest  degree.  The  Holy  Spirit  not  in  the  place  of  an 
earthly  father;  the  assumption  not  to  be  brought  in  any  way 
under  the  ordinary  laws  of  the  production  of  a  human  being, 
but  to  be  left  in  its  mystery,  as  a  new  creative  work  of  the 
Logos  enacted  through  the  Holy  Spirit. 

II. — As  to  the  Question,  Would  not  Christ  have  had  stain 
from  the  mother,  if  she  also  had  not  been  miraculously  rendered 
pure?1  The  question  of  the  Immaculate  Conception.  The 
question  is,  Was  the  Virgin  Mary  herself  conceived  without  the 
taint  of  original  sin?  Was  she  "sancta,  non  sanctificata " ? 
Gonzalez  (Span.  Jesuit,  17th  cent.):  "The  conception  of  Mary 
had  three  parts:  (a.)  material,  before  the  infusion  of  the  soul,  (b.) 
natural,  the  infusio  animce,  superadded,  (c.)  the  spiritual  concep- 
tion, caused  by  the  infusio  sanctificationis.  So  that,  the  Virgin, 
in  the  second  part,  might  for  an  instant  have  been  under  the 
power  of  original  sin."  But  Perrone  and  modern  writers  say: 
there  were  only  two  parts:  (a.)  conceptio  activa,  the  marital  act, 
(5.) — passiva,  the  union  of  the  soul  with  the  seed,  which  was  co- 
instantaneous  with  the  bestowal  of  grace. 

The  question  then  is,  Can  it  be  dogmatically  defined  that 
the  virgin  Mary  was  holy  as  soon  as  she  had  a  soul?  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  decided  this  in  the  affirmative  by  the 
decree  of  Dec.  8,  1854. 

Remarks.  (1)  The  consent  of  the  church  cannot  be  pleaded 
to  this  dogmatic  decision.  This  is  shown  (a.)  from  the  fact  that 
the  Fathers  know  nothing  of  immaculate  conception.  Tertullian, 
Athanasius,  Augustine,  John  of  Damascus,  teach  that  all  are 
under  sin ;  (b.)  from  the  fact  that  the  Mediasvals  were  against  it. 
Bernard's  (1140)  doctrine  is,  that  Mary  was  freed  from  sins,  by 

1  Sehleiermacher  says:  "We  must  suppose  a  supernatural,  sanctifying  influ- 
ence in  the  embryo."  M  tiller's  suggestion  is  better:  "Sinfulness  is  through  the 
propagation,  not  of  the  embryo,  but  of  the  person,  the  individual:  this  not  by  gen- 
eration in  Christ's  case.  This  holy  person  would  repel  all  impurity  from  the  verj 
start." 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  391 

grace,  after  conception:  "sanctificata  in  utero,"  like  Jeremiah 
and  John  the  Baptist,  and  so  for  a  time  under  original  sin.  The 
church  of  Spain  followed  him.  Peter  Lombard  (1150)  was  against 
it:  "grace  to  conquer  sin"  [received  by  Mary].  Alex.  Hales, 
(13th  cent.),  a  chief  authority,  teaches  that  she  was  "  sanctified"; 
Bonaventura  (13th  cent.),  "Mary  needed  redemption";  Aquinas, 
The  festival  of  8th  Dec.  [introduced  in  1140  by  canons  of  Lyons, 
as  the  Festival  of  her  Conception]  is  for  the  "  sanctification," 
and  not  for  the  i(  conception  "  of  the  virgin ;  Mary  was  "  sancti- 
fied," when,  we  do  not  know.1 

2,  No  proof  whatever  is  offered.     Perrone  cites  Gen.  iii.  15 
(Vulgate:  "She  shall  bruise"),  and  Luke  i.  28,  "Hail,  highly 
favored ! "     He  grants  that  there  is  no  decisive  proof  for  the 
doctrine  in  the  Bible;  says  there  is  no  proof  from  the  Bible 
against  it.     But,  the  passages  of  Scripture  which  speak  of  orig- 
inal sin  and  the  universality  of  redemption,  allow  of  no  exception. 

3.  The  argument  from  consent — even  of  Papal  authorities — 
fails.     Launoy  (Jansenist,  1731)  gives  thirteen  citations  from 
seven  Popes  against  the  doctrine.     At  Trent,  a  decision  could 
not  be  obtained.2 

4  As  to  the  theological  argument,  (a.)  The  position,  "  Only 
a  sinless  being  could  beget  [conceive]  a  sinless,"  would  prove 
the  sinlessness  of  Mary's  parents:  (b.)  The  argument  from  fit- 
ness3— God  would  make  Mary  most  fitting  for  her  office,  as  "the 
mother  of  God,"  as  "the  bride  of  the  Holy  Spirit" — asserts  more 
than  we  can  know,  except  by  revelation.  It  could  not  establish 
fact,  but,  at  the  most,  only  show  possibility. 

5.  Arguments  against  the  doctrine:  Luke  i.  47;  ii.  43;  John 
ii.  3;  1  Cor.  xv.  22;  Eph.  ii.  3;  Rom.  v.  12. 

6.  The  position  taken  by  the  church  of  Rome  in  this  decision 
of  1854.     (a.)  Deciding  by  "infallibility"  what  has  against  it  a 
large  consent  of  her  greatest  teachers — thus  sacrificing  "  tradi- 
tion" to  infallibility.     (&.)  Deciding  a  point  of«faith  by  papal 

1  Perrone's  explanation  of  Aquinas  and  Bernard:  "The  division  of  parts;' 
"  They  refer  only  to  the  animal  conception,  before  the  infusion  of  soul,  when  they 
speak  of  original  sin." 

2  Cf,  Perrone,  p.  113.  3  ibid,  pp.  102-111,  148. 


392  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

decree — the  ultramontane  theory,  of  infallibility  in  the  Papacy, 
carried  out  as  never  before  so  clearly,  (c.)  Deciding  by  "infalli- 
bility," on  the  ground  of  mere  human  consent,  a  matter  of  fact, 
which  only  omniscience  could  know — thus  stretching  infallibility 
to  its  utmost,  (d.)  Carrying  to  a  still  higher  extent  the  adora- 
tion of  the  creature,  making  the  virgin  to  have  a  prerogative 
which,  of  all  human  beings,  Christ  only  can  claim ;  exalting  her 
worship,  and  thus  becoming  more  idolatrous,  and  departing 
further  from  the  faith,  (e.)  Giving  itself  up  yet  more  completely 
to  the  control  of  the  Jesuit  influence — the  most  baleful  form  of 
Romanism. 

§  4.  In  the  miraculous  Conception  the  Logos  assumed  a  true  and 
complete  Humanity. 

Our  Saviour  was  a  proper  man,  possessing  a  "  true  body  and  a 
reasonable  soul." 

I. — A  true  body.  Proved,  (a.)  From  his  conception  and  birth, 
Matt.  i.  25;  Luke  i.  35;  ii.  7;  (6.)  His  growth  like  other  children, 
Luke  ii,  52;  (c.)  Hunger,  weariness,  infirmities:  need  of  rest, 
sleep,  Luke  iv.  2;  xxii.  44;  John  iv.  6;  (d.)  Pain,  suffering, 
wounds,  John  xi.  83.  35;  xix.  34;  Luke  xxii.  44;  Matt.  xxvi.  37; 
John  xx.  27;  (e.)  Flesh  and  bones,  Luke  xxiv.  39,  40;  (/.)  Cru- 
cifixion, death,  and  burial,  Luke  xxiv.  39;  Heb.  ii.  14. 

II. — A  reasonable  human  soul,  (a.)  Growth  in  wisdom, 
declaration  of  "ignorance,"  Luke  ii.  40,  52;  Mark  xiii.  32; 
Matt.  xvi.  21;  xxiv.  36;  (b.)  Temptation,  Matt.  iv.  1;  Luke  xxii. 
42;  Heb.  iv.  15;  v.  2,  8;  (c.)  Sorrow  and  sympathies,  Matt.  xxvi. 
37 ;  Luke  xix.  41 ;  John  xi.  35.  (d.)  Dependence  on  God,  Prayer,1 
Matt.  xiv.  19;  John  xi.  41;  (e.)  Acts  ii.  31.  (/.)  To  Christ  a 
human  Ttrevjua  belongs,  John  xi.  33,  38;  xiii.  21;  xix.  30;  Matt, 
xxvii.  50;  Mark  ii.  8;  Luke  ii.  40;  x.  21;  xxiii.  46;  1  Pet.  iii.  18; 
(g.)  To  Christ  a  human  tyv-xrj  belongs;  John  xii.  27;  Matt.  xxvi. 
38;  Mark  xiv.  34. 

III. — The  indispensableness  of  holding  the  complete  hu- 
manity of  Christ.  Denied  by  Docetse,  not  truly  held  by  Arians, 

i  The  Prayers  of  Christ  illustrative  of  his  Humanity,  Jour.  Sac.  Lit.  and 
Bib.  Eecord,  Oct.  1861. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  393 

undervalued  by  Sabellians — "  we  want  only  God,"  they  say, 
"  not  man."  The  church  has  always  confessed  the  need  and 
want  of  the  God-man  for  redemption,  (a.)  It  is  important  in 
connection  with  the  interpretation  of  Scripture.  Christ,  on  tho 
face  of  the  Gospels,  is  man — proper,  true,  real — if  any  ever  was. 
Man  is  not  man  without  the  human  soul  with  all  its  endow- 
ments of  "spirit" — is  only  animal.  An  interpretation  which  ox- 
pels  the  humanity  undermines  all  correct  interpretation.  (I.)  It 
is  important  as  regards  the  power  and  efficacy  of  his  example. 
We  are  to  be  like  Him.  (c.)  In  regard  to  his  position  as  the 
second  Adam,  (ci)  Most  "of  all,  in  connection  with  redemption. 
According  to  the  Scriptures,  the  Redeemer  must  be  of  the  na- 
ture of  the  redeemed:  Heb.  ii.  17,  16,  14;  Gal.  iv.  4.  (e.)  Atone- 
ment must  be  effected  through  his  human  nature,  the  divine 
could  not  suffer.  The  roots  of  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion are  cut  off,  if  we  deny  the  proper  humanity  of  Christ. 

§  5.  In  the  Scriptures  both  tJie  Divine  and  Human  Natures  of 
Christ  are  often  brought  under  one  View,  are  referred  to  in  their 
connection.  Rom.  ix.  5;  John  i.  1-14,  (a.)  The  Word  with  God, 
was  God,  and  the  first  great  divine  act — creation — ascribed  to 
Him:  (b.)  The  Word  became  flesh,  dwelt  among  us,  and  we 
beheld  his  glory;  1  John  i.  1,  2;  Phil.  ii.  6,  11;  Rom.  i.  3,  4; 
Heb.  i.;  ii. ;  1  Tim.  iii.  16;  John  i.  18.1 

§  6.  The  various  Modes  in  which  what  is  said  of  Christ  in 
the  Scriptures  is  to  be  interpreted  in  respect  to  his  Person  and 
Natures. 

Whenever  we  speak  of  any  whole  which  is  made  up  of 
different  elements,  we  use  the  same  subject  with  different  predi- 
cates, which  may  be  applied,  which  must  be  applied,  to  this  or 
that  element.  The  following  are  the  various  modes  in  which 
Christ  is  spoken  of:  (a.)  The  human  nature  gives  the  designation 
of  the  subject  while  the  predicates  belong  to  the  divine  nature, 
Instances:  "  As  concerning  the  flesh  Christ  came,  who — is  God 


1  "Only-begotten  God,"  as  read  by  some.     See  Ezra  Abbott,  Bibl.  Sac.,  Oct. 
18G1. 


394  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

over  all,"  Rom.  ix.  5;  "See  the  Son  of  man  ascend  up  where  Ht 
— was  before,"  John  vi.  62. 

(b.)  The  converse  of  the  foregoing.  Passages  in  which  the 
person  is  designated  from  the  divinity,  while  the  acts  are  of  the 
humanity.  Instances:  Rom.  viii.  32;  1  Cor.  ii.  8;  1  Cor.  xv.  47, 

(c.)  The  whole  person  the  subject  with  divine  predicates: 
John  viii.  58. 

(d.)  The  whole  person  the  subject  with  human  predicates: 
"  I— thirst." 

(e.)  The  whole  person  the  subject  with  predicates  of  both 
the  natures.  All  the  passages  just  cited  in  §  5  are  instances.1 

§  7.  According  to  the  Scriptures,  Christ  was  one  Person,  and 
his  Personality  ivasfrom  his  Divine  Nature. 

I. — One  Person.  There  is  nothing  in  Scripture  to  show  any- 
thing like  a  two-fold  personality — two  Christs,  a  man  and  a  God; 
but  the  same  undivided  person  is,  as  to  his  humanity,  from 
David — the  Son  of  David;  and  as  to  his  divinity,  the  Logos — the 
Son  of  God.  The  Scripture  asserts  this,  or  rather,  rests  on  this 
unity  of  the  person.  In  his  primeval  estate  of  glory,  in  his  ap- 
pearance in  the  world,  in  his  resurrection  and  consequent  glori- 
fication, He  is  the  same — the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever. 
There  is  as  much  evidence,  and  of  the  same  kind,  that  He  is  one 
person,  as  there  is  in  regard  to  any  being  or  man  in  history. 
There  are  two  ways  of  showing  this:  (a.)  He  always  uses  the 
first  personal  pronoun:  "Before  Abraham  was,  I  am,"  "The 
glory  which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was,"  "  I  am  with 
you  always";  He  is  also  addressed  as  "Thou,"  and  is  spoken 
of  as  He,  Him,  etc.  (b.)  He  is  never  spoken  of  as  if  the  man 
and  the  God  in  Him  had  personal  relations  or  converse  with 
each  other  (as  is  the  case  with  the  "  Persons  "  of  the  Trinity). 

II. — This  one  Person  had  its  personality  from  the  divine  na- 
ture.2 It  is  otherwise  logically  inconceivable.  There  was  not 

1  Illustrative  Parallel,     (a.)  Man— is  a  religious  animal,  (&.)  Man— is  spiritual 
and  sleeps,  (c.)  Shakespeare— is  a  genius,  (d.)  Chatham— suffers  pain,  (e.)  Burke  — 
delivered  an  oration. 

2  Usage  of  person  and  personality.    Person,  usually  broader:  the  whole  outward 
manifestation,  the  same  being  in  all  his  attributes.     Personality,  the  central  point 
of  the  person,  the  indefinable  I,  Ego. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  395 

a  human  personality,  there  was  a  human  nature,  perhaps  im« 
personal,  or  the  personality  merged  in  the  divine  person. 
"  Christ  was  not  a  human  person  with  a  divine  nature,  but 
a  divine  person  with  a  human  nature."  Another  view:  There 
may  be  supposed  an  embryo,  with  human  personality,  yet  never 
coming  to  distinct  being,  lost,  merged  in  the  divine  personality. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  human  nature  without  potential  per- 
sonality. Some  say,  personality  is  in  consciousness  alone. 
[Some  fuller  statements  on  this  point  are  given  in  Chap.  V.] 

§  8.  Summary  and  Conclusion  from  Scripture  Testimony  as  to 
the  Two  Natures  and  One  Person. 

Generally.  Christ  is  very  God  and  very  man,  yet  one  Per- 
son, the  God-man.  The  induction  of  these  points  is  not  from  a 
few  expressions,  but  from,  and  giving  the  final  expression  to, 
the  greatest  variety  of  utterances  concerning  Him.  Omitting 
either  of  these  points  puts  us  in  a  false  position,  suppresses 
§ome  Scriptural  statement. 

Analytically,  (a.)  Christ  is  one  Person,  (b.)  A  perfect  di- 
vine nature,  (c.)  United  to  an  entire  human  nature,  (d.)  In  this 
the  divine  nature  is  active,  the  human  nature  passive,  (e.)  The 
act  is  called  "personal  unition;"the  result,  personal  or  hypos- 
tatic  union,  kva.v^p^itr]6i^.  (/.)  So  Christ  is  the  God-man,  Ssar- 
SpcaTtos,1  and  so  abides.  (</.)  In  this  union  the  natures  are  not 
confounded  or  commingled,  (h.)  Nor  is  the  Person  divided. 
There  is  in  the  one  person  a  communio  naturarum,  so  that  the 
properties  of  either  nature  may  be  ascribed  to  the  one  person, 
and  there  is  "  one  theandric  energy." a 

The  Proof,  (a.)  It  is  inconceivable  that  it  should  be  other- 
wise, (b.)  The  reasons  for  the  union  always  remain.3  (c.)  The 

1  First  in  Origen. 

a[But  see  further  on,  and  especially  in  Chap.  V.,  for  the  sense  in  which  this 
statement  is  made.] 

3  1  Cor.  xv.  24,  28,  urged  against  this.  Bat  according  to  that  passage  "the 
Son "  remains,  only  the  mediatorial  scepter  is  laid  down.  The  position  [advo- 
cated by  Dr.  Hickok  ?]  that  when  Christ  gives  up  the  kingdom,  the  Man  remains 
Head  of  the  Church,  while  the  Logos  goes  back  to  God,  is  not  consistent  with 
such  passages  as  are  cited  under  (c.). 


396  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Scriptural  assertions.  The  eternal  reign,  Dan.  ii.  44,  vii.  14,  18; 
Luke  i.  33;  Rev.  xi.  15;  The  eternal  relation  to  the  church,  and 
to  the  redeemed  soul,  Rev.  vii.  16,  17;  xxi.  22,  23;  xxii.  1,  3; 
Heb.  vii.  25,  16,  21,  28;  vi.  20. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    EARLY    HERETICAL    OPINIONS    AS    TO    THE  PERSON    OF    CHRIST. 

This  belongs  to  the  History  of  Dogmas.  Here  only  a  sketch 
is  to  be  given. 

I. — Scheme  of  the  Possibilities.  The  Scriptural  elements  as 
we  have  seen  are — Christ  is  one  Person,  having  a  divine  na- 
ture and  a  human  nature,  and  his  original  and  essential  person- 
ality is  that  of  the  divine  nature.  Then  the  following  views 
are  possible: 

(a.)  Taking  the  Person  as  basis  and  denying  the  reality  of 
one  or  the  other  of  the  natures,  denying  the  divine  nature — 
Ebionitism: — the  human  nature,  Docetism. 

(&.')  Denying — not  the  human  nature,  but  the  integrity  of  it — 
Apollinaris. 

(c.)  Allowing  the  two  natures  in  their  integrity,  but  asserting 
(virtually)  two  Persons — Nestorianism. 

(d.)  Affirming  one  nature  and  one  person  and  that  divine — 
Eutyches,  Monophy sites. 

(e.)  Affirming  one  nature  from  the  two,  with  one  will — Mono- 
thelites. 

(/.)  Affirming  one  person,  two  natures,  with  differences  upon 
the  question  of  the  two  wills — The  general  orthodox  position. 

II. — Definitions,     (a.)   .Nature,   ovdia:   what  belongs  to  the 
essence  or  substance,     (b.)  Person:   substantia  individua  quae 
nee  alterius  pars  est,  nee  in  altera  sustentatur.1    (c.)  Personality 
euppositum  iutelligens  per  se  subsistens. 

1  Chemnitz. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  397 

III. — Statement.  The  human  nature  of  Christ  never  existed 
out  of  union  with  his  divine  nature,  and  so  has  no  distinct  per- 
sonality. Yet  it  lacks  nothing  of  complete  human  personality. 
The  ultimate  question  here  is,  Did  the  two  natures  manifest 
themselves  as  two?  Monothelites  said:  There  are  two  na- 
tures but  only  one  will — one  manifestation.  Orthodoxy  in- 
clines, with  reservations,  to  the  position  of  two  manifestations. 
"  One  theandric  energy,"  proposed  by  the  Emperor  Herac- 
lius,  633.  [The  author  declares  neither  for  nor  against  this. 
Would  "two  manifestations  of  one  theandric  energy"  indicate 
his  view?  See  Chap.  V.] 


CHAPTER  III. 

LATER   DOCTRINAL   DIFFERENCES    BROUGHT   UP   IN   THE   CONTROVERSIES 
OF   THE    REFORMATION. 

I. — The  Calvinistic  bodies  have  stood  on  the  old  foundation- 

II. — The  Socinians  renewed  Ebionitism  or  Arianism. 

III. — The  Lutherans  affirmed  communicatio  idiomatum,  that 
one  nature  partakes  of  the  attributes  of  the  other.  The  com- 
munication is  of  the  divine  to  the  human — not  the  converse. 
"  Finitum  capax  infiniti."  This  applied  especially  to  the  Lord's 
Supper.  Ubiquity  is  the  word  which  expresses  the  most  essential 
thing  in  the  theory. 

Objections  of  the  Reformed:  (a.)  Christ's  body,  then,  is  pres- 
ent everywhere  as  much  as  in  the  sacramental  bread,  (b.)  How 
can  a  human  nature  become  omniscient  and  yet  remain  ignor- 
ant, etc  ?  How  can  this  be  affirmed  without  strict  logical  con- 
tradiction  ?  (c.)  The  theory  would  result  in  a  monophysitic  view, 
annulling  the  real  humanity,  (d.)  It  ought  to  teach  that  the  di- 
vine partakes  in  the  human,  which  it  does  not.  (e.)  Generally: 
transference  of  properties  would  annul  nature — infinite  to  finite, 
finite  to  infinite. 


398  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

IV. — The  doctrine  of  Kenosis.1  Phil.  ii.  7,  kocvrdv 
nopqjrjv  8ovA.ov  hafiwr.  The  Incarnation  was  a  self-emptying  act 
of  the  Logos,  the  laying  aside,  for  a  time,  of  divine  powers  and 
prerogatives. 

Objections: 

(a.)  This  would  involve  a  change,  for  thirty  years,  in  the 
Divine  Trinity. 

(&.)  It  is  inconceivable  that  the  Godhead  should  thus  become 
naught.  Gess  and  Reubelt2  say,  If  Christ  has  life  in  himself, 
He  may  annul  it  of  himself.  But  the  act  ascribed  to  Christ 
in  Phil.  ii.  7  is  best  understood  as  a  humiliation,  a  taking  of 
new  conditions — not  as  an  annulling  of  his  divinity. 

(c.)  It  is  argued  that  God  the  Father  might  effect  the  Kenosis, 
as»He  gave  life  to  the  Son.  But  (a.)  Phil.  ii.  7  says  Christ  did  what- 
ever was  done;  (6.)  The  Father  could  not  annul  the  divine  being 
of  the  Son  any  more  than  his  own;  (c.)  if  He  could,  the  Son 
would  not  be  equally  divine;  (d.)  The  doctrine  leads  over  into 
the  position  of  the  entire  dependence  of  the  Son  for  nature,  be- 
ing (as  well  as  Sonship)  on  the  Father.8 

V. — Philosophical  views.  Schelling:  The  essence  of  the  In- 
carnation is  in  the  principle  of  Identity — the  union  of  opposites. 
Hegelians :  The  second  Person  is  the  world.  Schleiermacher :  The 
truth  is  that  of  Divine  Humanity;  in  Christ  is  found  the  ideal 
union,  of  which  we  partake.  Christ  was  not  personally  pre-ex- 
isterit.  Dorner:  Divinity  and  Humanity  are  not  diverse.  See 
Hodge. 

1  For  it,  Thomasius,  Liebner,  v.  Hofmann,  etc.    Dorner  against  it  (Glaubensl. ). 

2  Prof.  J.  A.  Keubelt.     Two  articles  in  Bib.  Sac.,  1870-71.     Also,  Transl.  of 
Gess,  Script.  Doct.  of  Person  of  Christ,  Andover,  1870. 

3  Gess  says,  "  Aseity  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  Father  only." 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  399 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    OBJECTIONS   AND   DIFFICULTIES   URGED   AGAINST   THE  DOCTRINE 
OF   THE    PERSON    OF    CHRIST. 

Preparatory  Considerations. 

All  great  truths,  like  all  great  men,  pass  through  a  protracted 
struggle  before  their  victory  is  secure.  Though  not  contrary 
to  reason,  they  are  above  it,  and  reason  will  assail  them.  They 
are  above  common  sense,  and  common  sense  will  take  offence  at 
them.  They  are  revealed  to  faith,  but  all  men  have  not  faith. 
They  are  given  to  meet  our  spiritual  wants,  but  sin  deadens 
our  sense  of  the  greatness  of  these  wants.  They  show  the  rela- 
tions and  reconcile  the  opposition  between  God  and  man,  heaven 
and  earth,  but  many  who  live  on  the  earth  care  not  for  heaven, 
and  many  men  have  little  sense  of  the  greatness  and  the  won- 
derful works  of  God.  They  unfold  the  mysteries  of  the  divine 
nature,  but  some  can  hardly  see  the  difference  between  a  mys- 
tery and  an  imagination. 

The  greatest  truths,  too,  are  those  that  reconcile  the  greatest 
antagonisms,  but  many  do  not  understand,  and  many  explain 
away  the  fearful  antagonism  there  is  between  a  holy  God  and  a 
sinful  world;  the  great  gulf  is  for  them  only  a  narrow  stream 
which  they  may  readily  leap  over  at  any  time;  the  vast  moun- 
tain, seen  in  the  distance,  seems  so  like  a  mole-hill  that  it 
appears  not  at  all  necessary  for  God  to  come  down  to  earth 
to  enable  us  to  surmount  it. 

But  if  we  might  expect  the  great  truths  connected  with  our 
redemption  to  be  assailed  by  man,  no  less  may  we  expect  that 
they  would  be  defended  and  made  triumphant  by  the  power  of 
God.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass.  From  conflict  they  emerge 
with  higher  luster,  purified  and  exalted.  The  attack  sharpens 
the  defence.  The  truth  becomes  more  clear  and  definite,  is  re- 
duced to  more  precise  statements,  is  guarded  against  perversion, 
is  seen  in  its  connection  with  other  truths,  is  adjusted  in  the  great 
system  which  sets  forth  God's  dealings  with  man,  is  illumined 


400  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

and  not  consumed  by  the  fire  sent  down  to  devour  it.  Thus 
has  it  been,  pre-eminently,  with  the  doctrine  respecting  the  Per- 
son of  Christ.  No  truth  has  been  more  fiercely  debated,  through 
longer  ages;  none  has  experienced  greater  opposition  from  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men;  none  has  received  more  precise 
and  accurate  definitions;  none  has  asserted  its  triumphant  claims 
more  successfully  against  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  this  world.  In 
the  early  church  the  doctrine  respecting  Christ's  Person  even 
took  the  precedence  of  the  doctrine  respecting  his  atoning  sac- 
rifice. With  a  humble  and  direct  faith,  men  came  to  Him,  clung 
to  Him,  loved  Him  with  a  deep  personal  affection,  saw  in  Him 
the  object  of  all  praise  and  glory.  They  believed  in  Him  heartily, 
before  they  began  to  reflect  upon  their  faith.  And  the  first  sub- 
jects of  doctrinal  discussion  were  those  that  grew  out  of  his 
complex  nature.  One  sect  exalted  the  humanity,  another  the 
divinity:  the  respective  attributes  of  each  nature  were  defined. 
Council  after  council,  through  six  centuries,  was  called,  to  rebut 
heresies,  or  establish  and  define  the  faith.  Let  some  see  in  all 
this  only  the  jarring  disputes  of  theologians:  let  them  also  see 
that  they  were  disputing  about  what  formed  the  central  object 
of  their  faith  and  spiritual  life.  Far  from  seeing  in  these  con- 
troversies an  evidence  against,  we  may  derive  from  them  the 
strongest  evidence  for,  the  existence  of  the  most  striking  elements 
of  contrast  in  the  person  of  Him  to  whom  all  parties  equally 
looked  as  the  engrossing  center  of  their  faith. — And  where  in 
modern  times  this  doctrine  has  been  assailed  with  the  greatest 
vehemence,  it  has  come  forth  again  from  the  assault  with  greater 
luster.  In  the  land  most  boastful  of  its  philosophy,  philosophy 
even  came  to  pay  its  homage  to  Jesus  Christ.  The  problems 
which  the  church  held  as  articles  of  faith  have  come  to  be  most 
vehemently  discussed  as  questions  of  philosophy.  Around  the 
person  of  Christ  their  hosts  have  gathered,  they  have  assaulted 
Him  with  their  fiercest  questionings,  they  have  been  baffled  by 
his  wondrous  person,  and  even  when  they  do  not  bow  to  his 
person,  they  yet  confess  that  the  doctrine  respecting  Him  is  the 
sublimest  doctrine  to  which  man  has  attained ;  they  have  taken 
it  and  placed  it  in  the  very  center  of  their  systems,  and  pro- 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  401 

claimed  that  the  union  between  what  is  divine  and  what  is  human 
is  the  great  central  and  reconciling  truth  to  which  all  the  facts 
of  history  and  all  the  speculations  of  philosophy  must  bring 
men's  minds. 

And  in  our  own  New  England,  when  many  wavered  in 
their  belief  in  the  divinity  of  Christ,  when  most  of  its  litera- 
ture, its  culture,  its  honored  names  in  church  arid  state,  and  the 
predominant  influences  of  refined  society  were  all  enlisted  in 
favor  of  a  system  which  denied  the  more  excellent,  though  it 
glorified  the  more  humble,  nature  of  our  Lord,  how  was  it  that 
such  a  cause,  with  every  prestige  of  success,  was  suddenly  checked 
in  its  advancing  course  ?  It  was  not  by  argument  alone,  it  was 
not  alone  by  showing  its  inconsistency  with  Scripture,  but  it 
was  also  because  there  was  a  new  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  of 
God,  giving  a  deeper  sense  of  sin,  a  more  thorough  longing  for 
salvation ;  it  was  because  men's  souls  were  deeply  stirred,  and 
came  to  grapple  with  the  great  problems  of  their  destiny ;  be- 
cause they  saw  their  helplessness  and  sinfulness,  and  felt  the 
need  of  an  Almighty  Deliverer:  it  was  because  by  the  exercise 
of  simple  and  hearty  faith  in  Him,  as  the  giver  of  spiritual  life, 
they  saw  the  fitness  of  such  a  Kedeemer  to  all  their  wants,  and 
experienced  the  full  sense  of  pardon  and  peace  only  when  lean- 
ing on  the  arm  of  this  gracious  Deliverer.  And  all  this  was 
and  must  have  been  a  wonder  to  those  who  felt  not  the  burden 
of  sin,  and  realized  not  the  full  meaning  of  the  law  of  God,  and 
whose  religious  feelings  were  not  quickened,  so  that  they  could 
cry  out,  my  heart  and  flesh  long  for  the  living  God.  But  they 
who  sought  the  living  God,  perfect  in  holiness  and  abounding 
in  mercy,  found  Him  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  bowed 
in  adoration-  before  Him  as  the  Lord  and  giver  of  their  spiritual 
life.  Very  like  a  living  power  has  been  the  cause  of  Jesus 
Christ  through  the  history  and  changes  of  his  church;  very  like 
a  living  influence  is  that  which  still  draws  men  to  Him  from 
the  depths  of  sin,  from  the  heights  of  human  reason;  very  like 
a  living  Being  does  He  still  and  ever  present  Himself  to  the 
eyes  of  our  faith ;  a  secret  and  unseen  agency  still  draws  in  every 
clime  men's  hearts  towards  Him;  they  love  Him  as  they  cannot 


402  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

love  a  man  who  has  gone  to  his  grave ;  men  oppose  Him  as  they 
do  not.  oppose  a  Luther  or  a  Calvin:  even  when  they  try  to  prove 
that  He  is  not  divine,  they  do  it  because  there  is  so  much  to 
show  that  He  is  divine ;  they  never  try  to  prove  that  Paul  was 
a  mere  man,  01  that  John  was  not  a  God:  they  reason  against 
Christ? s  divinity  as  they  reason  against  nothing  that  is  unsub- 
stantial and  imaginary — not  as  men  reason  against  a  chimsera, 
but  as  they  contend  against  a  power  which  the  force  of  the  con- 
test shows  really  to  exist. 

Such  has  been  the  living  course  of  Christ,  as  the  Head  and 
Leader  of  his  church,  through  its  conflicts  in  this  world.  No 
one  doctrine  has  been  more  impugned,  or  has  maintained  its 
ground  more  firmly,  than  that  respecting  his  Person.  In  the 
course  of  the  controversy  the  greatest  variety  of  objections  have 
been  made.  Some  of  the  chief  of  these  we  now  proceed  to 
consider. 

I. — It  is  said  that  we  can  explain  all  that  the  Bible  says 
about  the  Person  of  Christ,  without  assuming  his  divinity. 
Some  few  texts,. it  is  said,  do  seem  to  have  a  halo  of  divinity 
about  them,  but  when  we  come  to  examine  them  closely,  the 
halo  is  not  so  distinctly  visible.  This  brings  up  the  subject  of 

The  right  Mode  of  Interpreting  Scripture.  [The  observations 
which  follow  would  have  been  in  place  in  the  Introduction,  as 
giving  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  author  would  regard 
the  Scriptures  in  reference  to  every  main  doctrine.  But  the 
general  statements  could  not  well  be  sundered  from  the  special 
references  to  the  doctrine  now  under  consideration.  Their  im- 
portance with  reference  to  the  whole  theological  system  will  be 
the  explanation  of  their  being  inserted  here  at  such  length.] 

There  is  a  strong  tendency  in  men's  minds,  when  dealing 
with  a  difficult  subject,  to  banish  all  difficulties  by  simply  deny- 
ing them.  Many  prefer  to  receive  the  half  of  a  truth  by  the  under- 
standing, to  taking  the  whole  of  it  by  faith,  especially  where  the 
truth  seems  to  involve  both  something  mysterious  and  some- 
thing intelligible;  we  are  very  apt  to  grasp  the  intelligible  half, 
and  let  the  mysterious  remainder  evanesce.  Thus,  in  explain- 
ing  God's  moral  government,  it  is  much  easier  to  think  out  a 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  4'03 

system  made  up  wholly  of  divine  purposes,  or  to  think  out  one 
made  up  wholly  of  free  agency,  than  it  is  to  combine  both  these 
parts  of  the  system  into  one  orderly  and  consistent  whole.  So 
it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  that  Jesus  was  a  man — this  is 
simple,  there  have  been  many  very  wonderful  men  in  the  world 
— but  to  say  that  He  is  also  God  introduces  a  profound  mystery,  a 
somewhat  that  is  quite  unfathomable.  If  now  the  Bible  could 
be  interpreted  so  as  to  be  consistent  with  the  intelligible  half 
of  what  is  said  of  Jesus,  that  would  relieve  us  of  a  great  mys- 
tery, and  to  relieve  the  soul  of  mysteries  is  thought  by  some  to 
be  the  great  end  of  all  interpretation  and  reflection — one  evi- 
dence of  the  advance  of  knowledge  and  culture.  And  at  the 
worst — or  best — though  some  difficult  passages  should  remain,  it 
is  thought  to  be  better  to  leave  some  uncertainty  about  their  in- 
terpretation, than  to  leave  anything  inexplicable  in  the  nature 
of  Christ.  And  besides,  it  is  very  well  known  that  words  are 
used  in  a  great  variety  of  senses,  and  if  the  highest  sense  of  a 
word  be  mysterious,  the  lowest  sense  may  be  level  to  our  under- 
standings; if  the  highest  sense  involves  in  difficulties,  the  lowest 
makes  all  plain.  And  the  great  aim  in  interpreting  the  Bible  is 
to  remove  all  difficulties.  Figurative  language  also  abounds: 
the  Orientals  were  famous  for  the  use  of  it;  and  the  Bible  was 
written  in  Oriental  parts.  They  were  not  so  careful  to  dis- 
tinguish between  what  was  divine  and  what  was  human  as 
we  are. 

A  series  of  rules  for  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  might  in 
this  way  be  easily  made  out.  Prove  first,  that  Christ  was  a  man ; 
assert  next,  that  He  could  not  be  both  God  and  man,  that  this 
involves  an  absurdity ;  and  explain  all  the  Scripture  by  this  rule. 
Another  formula  would  be,  Take  any  word  applied  to  Christ, 
which  has  been  interpreted  of  his  divine  nature,  reduce  it  to  its 
lowest  terms,  and  show  that  it  can  possibly  mean  something  less 
than  absolute  divinity;  show  this  of  each  of  the  terms  so  used, 
and  the  result  will  be,  that  whatever  words  in  whatever  variety 
have  been  used  to  unfold  the  higher  nature  of  Jesus,  they  could 
not  by  any  possibility  prove  that  He  had  that  nature — because 
it  is  impossible  at  the  outset.  All  the  difficulties  will  in  this 


404  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

way  disappear.  For  what  is  difficult  can  be  explained  by  what 
is  easy,  and  what  is  mysterious  by  what  is  natural,  and  what 
crosses  our  feelings  by  what  suits  our  feelings,  and  we  may  make 
a  very  perfect  man  out  of  one  who  is  called  God,  a  very  clear 
system  of  natural  religion  out  of  an  obscure  system  of  revealed 
truth,  an  easy  system  of  morals  out  of  a  hard  system  of  divinity; 
and  we  shall  become  versed  in  all  the  easy  parts  of  Scripture 
and  easy  in  all  the  difficult  parts;  and  if  we  do  not  understand 
God's  ways  with  man,  we  shall  at  least  see  clearly  what  are 
man's  ways  with  God  and  with  his  revelation. 

But  against  all  this  we  urge  the  position,  that  precisely  where 
and  when  the  Bible  speaks  of  the  mysteries  of  the  divine  nature, 
if  it  be  indeed  the  Word  of  God,  we  are  bound  in  critical  jus= 
tice  to-be  most  guarded  and  reverential  in  our  interpretations. 
Far  from  seeking  to  diminish  or  explain  away  the  words  which 
announce  to  us  such  a  wonderful  manifestation,  we  should  rather 
seek  to  give  them  their  greatest  intensity  of  meaning,  and  should 
let  them  be  invested  with  something  of  the  sacredness  and  awful- 
iiess  of  the  subject  which  they  are  meant  to  announce.  In  their 
very  best  estate,  human  language  and  human  thoughts  are  all 
too  poor  and  meagre  to  declare  to  us  the  immensity  and  won- 
derful works  of  Jehovah.  All  language  bends  beneath  the  weight 
of  such  supernatural  themes.  What  folly,  then,  in  the  wisdom 
which  will  take  all  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  Scripture  that 
have  been  selected  to  describe  God's  wonderful  manifestations 
of  himself,  and  give  to  them  their  smallest  possible  amount  of 
significancy,  which  will  take  a  figurative  expression,  and  give 
the  lowest  meaning  to  the  figure — when  it  would  seem  as  if 
even  natural  reason  might  teach  us,  that  any  figure  of  human 
language,  when  applied  to  the  divine  works,  must  be  taken  ;n 
its  most  eminent  and  daring  sense,  in  order  to  conform  to  the 
nature  of  the  subject  which  it  is  intended  to  describe. 

We  may  interpret  historical  facts  in  the  Bible  by  the  laws 
which  govern  us  in  the  interpretation  of  history;  we  may  write 
the  lives  of  the  great  and  good  men  who  are  there  described  to 
us  as  we  would  write  the  lives  of  other  great  and  good  men ;  we 
may  interpret  poetry  as  poetry,  and  prose  as  prose,  and  many 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  405 

things  according  to  the  religious  culture  and  national  habits  of 
the  chief  actors  in  them—  in  short,  we  may  interpret  the  things 
that  belong  to  men  by  the  standard  of  men,  but  we  must  also 
interpret  what  relates  to  God  in  a  manner  conformable  to  the 
mysteriousness  of  his  Being  and  the  wonderfulness  of  his  works. 
And  when  He  unfolds  to  us,  so  to  speak,  his  hidden  nature, 
when  He  unveils  his  glories  to  our  gaze,  and  lets  us  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  interior  economy  of  the  very  Godhead;  and  when 
He  unfolds  this  in  connection  with  the  greatest  work  in  which  we 
can  conceive  even  God  to  engage,  the  redemption  of  an  apostate 
world;  what  reverence  can  be  too  great,  what  caution  unwise, 
that  we  do  not  misunderstand  or  diminish  the  full  sense  of  the 
majestic  truths  so  graciously  delivered  to  us ! 

Against  the  attempt  to  show  that  the  language  respecting 
Christ's  higher  nature  can  be  interpreted  in  a  lower  sense  we 
urge  again — what  has  been  said  in  another  connection — that 
the  conviction  respecting  his  divinity  does  not  result  from  iso- 
lated phrases,  is  not  determined  by  the  interpretation  of  particu- 
lar words,  but  is  formed  from  the  total  representation  given 
of  Him  in  the  inspired  record.  In  almost  every  variety  of 
phrase  and  image  are  his  wonderful  glories  depicted.  In  his 
relations  to  God  and  in  his  relations  to  man,  both  natures  are 
implied,  implied  when  not  directly  asserted,  most  naturally  in- 
ferred when  not  expressly  stated.  Hence  the  process  of  trying 
not  to  find  his  divinity  is  one  of  constant  explaining,  if  not  of 
explaining  away.  The  Person  of  Jesus  Christ,  so  to  speak,  is 
inwrought,  into  the  very  texture  of  revelation.  Give  the  New 
Testament  a  living  form,  and  the  form  it  takes  is  that  of  the 
God-man,  the  mediator  between  heaven  and  earth,  equally 
allied  to  both  God  and  man.  Now  we  do  not  deny  but  that  a 
skilful  anatomist  may  dissect  this  book,  and  not  find  the  divin- 
ity of  Christ  which  animates  it:  but  the  very  process  of  dissec- 
tion has  killed  the  living  spirit,  which  of  course  eludes  all  his 
future  research. 

In  interpreting  the  Bible,  something  more  is  needed  than 
critical  skill, — a  humble  acceptance  and  belief  of  God's  revela- 
tion to  us — an  expectation  of  finding,  when  God  condescends 


406  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

to  unfold  his  nature,  what  may  surpass  our  understanding, 
though  it  may  claim  our  faith — a  sense  arid  feeling  that  God  is 
there  revealed  in  his  Word,  as  nowhere  else — and  a  reverential 
interpretation,  and  a  thankful  acceptance,  and  an  implicit  oelief, 
of  all  that  is  declared  respecting  the  person  of  Him,  whose  is 
the  only  name  given  under  heaven  amongst  men  whereby  we 
must  be  saved.  And  if  Christ  be  really  the  God-man,  if  his 
state  of  humanity  was  a  state  of  humiliation,  of  humiliation  for 
our  redemption,  what  ingratitude  to  transform  all  that  shows 
the  greatness  of  his  condescension  into  an  argument  to  disprove 
the  greatness  of  his  majesty,  what  shame  to  make  his  human 
sympathy  and  suffering  the  ground  for  denying  his  antecedent 
and  eternal  glory ! 

In  respect,  then,  to  the  objection  under  consideration,  we 
grant  fully,  that  it  is  possible  to  explain  the  whole  of  Scripture 
without  proving  Christ  to  be  the  God-man.  This  can  be  done, 
it  has  been  done.  But  how  ?  On  principles  which  undermine 
every  rational  theory  of  interpretation;  on  principles  which 
assert  that  it  is  possible  for  a  person  to  be  called  God,  to  have 
divine  attributes  ascribed  to  Him,  to  have  divine  works  (as 
creation)  ascribed  to  Him,  to  be  worshipped,  to  be  an  object  of 
our  highest  trust  and  love,  and  yet  not  to  be  divine.  On  such 
principles  Scripture  can  be  interpreted  so  as  to  do  away  with 
the  proof  of  Christ's  divinity,  and  only  on  such. 

II. — A  second  objection  which  is  brought  against  the  doctrine 
that  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ  two  natures  are  combined  in 
One  Person,  is,  that  the  doctrine,  in  this  form,  is  not  found  in  the 
Bible,  and  therefore  cannot  be  an  Article  of  Faith. 

This  objection,  however,  brings  up  to  our  minds  a  peculiarity 
of  the  Bible  in  respect  to  its  mode  of  revealing  truth,  and  alsc 
a  remarkable  fact  in  the  history  of  the  church  as  to  the  mode  of 
developing  truth.  The  Bible  is  not  a  book  of  dry,  dogmatical 
statements;  it  contains  no  Confession  of  Faith;  it  gives  us  no 
system  or  summary  of  doctrine.  It  is  altogether  a  different 
book  from  what  a  mere  man  would  have  written.  Its  words 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  407 

are  spirit  and  life.  It  is  a  book  for  all  times.  It  states  the 
same  truth  in  a  great  variety  of  ways.  It  involves  one  truth  in 
another.  It  is  somewhat  like  the  book  of  nature,  where  all 
things  seem  most  strangely  blended,  in  the  greatest  variety — 
the  larger  animals,  birds,  insects,  trees,  shrubs,  earths,  all  exist- 
ing together  without  any  sign  of  regular  classification.  Now 
when  any  one  begins  to  study  nature,  he  systematizes,  he  de- 
scribes accurately,  he  reproduces,  in  another  form,  what  he  finds 
scattered  so  profusely  around  him:  he  does  not  mean  to  make 
it  over  again,  or  to  make  a  better  system,  but  only  to  describe 
what  actually  is — and  that  is  more  than  he  has  ever  done  yet — 
and  it  is  a  necessary  course  for  him  to  take  in  order  to  get  fully 
acquainted  with  the  laws  and  harmony  of  nature. 

So  it  is  in  respect  to  the  Bible  and  to  human  systems  framed 
upon  it.  Men  will  think  about  the  Bible:  it  was  meant  that  they 
should;  and  they  will  set  forth  what  they  think:  and  they  may 
not  think  to  good  purpose — but  still  they  think.  They  cannot 
produce  anything  half  so  living  as  the  Bible;  they  cannot  ex- 
haust it;  it  always  remains  the  only  source  of  infallibility,  the 
chief  source  of  sanctifying  truth.  But  as  men  think  about  the 
doctrines  there  contained,  and  think  more  and  more,  they  attain 
a  profourider  sense  of  its  wonderful  depth  and  consistency.  .  The 
doctrines  are  developed  from  age  to  age  in  new  harmony.  One 
set  of  doctrines  after  another  is  taken  up  by  the  church  and 
discussed — often  vehemently,  seen  in  all  their  bearings,  brought 
into  a  definite  and  consistent  whole:  and  then  another  series  is 
begun  upon :  and  so  the  treasures  of  the  Bible  are  successively 
poured  over  into  men's  minds;  but  it  still  remains  an  exhaust- 
less  fountain. 

If  this  is  true  as  a  general  fact,  much  more  will  it  be  found 
to  be  true  respecting  the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ.  He 
is  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  as  a  living  Person,  full  of  majesty 
and  grace.  God  did  not  reveal  to  us  a  doctrine,  He  sent  his 
Son:  He  does  not  proclaim  a  system,  which  men  are  simply  to 
understand  and  assent  to,  He  sets  before  our  eyes  a  Being,  a 
living  Person  whom  we  may  love  and  trust.  But  we  not  only 
believe  in  Christ,  we  think  about  Him.  And  DOW  if  any  one  in 


408  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

telling  his  thoughts  about  Christ  should  say,  He  is  a  mere  man 
— to  meet  this  statement  we  may,  first  of  all,  quote  some  texta 
which  show  Him  to  be  divine.  It  will  be  said  in  reply,  they  dc 
not  prove  that  He  is  divine,  and  then  comes  a  controversy. 
And  the  very  substance  of  the  controversy  is  this,  whether  what 
the  Bible  says  about  Christ  shows  Him  to  have  one  nature  or 
two  natures.  No  simpler  mode  of  stating  it  can  be  framed. 
And  in  this  statement,  He  has  two  natures,  we  express  our  faith. 
Now  it  is  objected,  this  statement  is  not  found  in  the  Bible. 
We  grant  it,  but  also  say  that  we  are  compelled  to  make  it,  tc 
refute  a  notion  which  has  been  advanced,  which  is  also  not  found 
in  the  Bible,  viz.,  that  Christ  is  only  a  created  being.  Had  that 
assertion  not  been  made,  we  had  probably  not  made  ours.  Had 
some  others  not  expressed  their  belief  about  what  Christ  is,  in 
a  way  different  from  that  of  the  Bible,  neither  had  we  done  so 
And  it  is  a  most  extraordinary  piece  of  irrelevancy,  after  others 
have  led  the  way,  by  saying  something  about  Christ  which  is 
not  contained  in  so  many  words  in  the  Scripture,  and  which  we 
believe  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  Scripture,  to  find  fault  with 
us  for  doing  the  same  thing.  Bat  yet  we  can  thank  them  for  it. 
Even  such  objections  are  not  without  benefit.  They  lead  us  to 
study  more  closely  the  character  and  person  of  our  Redeemer. 
To  refute  the  objections,  we  have  had  to  penetrate  more  fully 
into  the  sense  of  the  inspired  word,  and  to  dwell  more  intently 
upon  the  nature  of  Him  who  is  its  living  center.  We  have  thus 
got  to  clearer  views  and  more  enlarged  conceptions  of  what  He 
is  in  all  his  relations.  And  thus  it  is  that  heresy  sharpens  and 
deepens  faith. 

III. — This  same  objection,  for  the  substance  thereof,  is  found 
in  the  statement  that  the  doctrine  of  two  natures  and  one  person 
was  not  held  by  the  early  church.  We  grant  that  the  early 
Christians  had  not  this  exact  form  of  stating  their  faith,  but 
they  had  for  the  most  part,  what  was  better — the  faith  itself, 
whole  and  undivided.  They  were  filled  with  a  living  sense  of 
their  union  with  Christ:  they  loved  Him  so  earnestly,  and  be- 
lieved in  Him  so  undoubtingly,  and  served  Him  so  zealously, 
that  they  stayed  not  to  analyze  what  He  was,  in  logical  phrases 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  409 

Bat  when  his  complex  nature  was  questioned,  when  doubts  were 
raised  and  queries  put,  then  the  defence  was  as  vigorous  as  the 
assault,  then  the  answers  were  given,  always  in  the  form  best 
fitted  to  meet  the  objection.  Had  you  asked  an  early  Christian, 
Was  Jesus  Christ  a  man,  he  would  have  been  astonished  at  your 
simplicity :  did  He  not  appear  upon  the  earth,  and  have  not  these 
apostles  seen  Him?  Had  you  asked  him,  Was  Christ  very  God? — 
he  would  have  said,  There  is  also  God  the  Father.  But,  Is  Christ 
divine  in  his  nature? — the  word  "nature"  in  this  connection 
would  have  been  new  to  him,  and  he  would  have  thought  some- 
what further.  Well,  was  He  a  created  being  ? — Assuredly  not. 
May  you  worship  Him  ? — We  do  so  every  day  in  hymns  and 
doxologies.  Do  you  love  Him  with  your  whole  heart? — Yea, 
and  try  to  show  this  love  every  day  of  my  life.  Do  you  love 
Him  and  trust  in  Him  as  much  as  you  can  do  in  any  being,  in 
God  Himself? — With  a  countenance  full  of  joy,  he  would  have 
answered,  All  I  have  and  all  I  am,  all  my  faith  and  all  my  love, 
are  his  now  and  for  evermore. 

And  if  all  this  would  not  substantially  prove  that  he  really 
believed  that  Christ  was  a  being  who  united  the  human  and 
divine  natures  in  One  Person,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  can  prove  it. 

IV. — A  fourth  objection  that  if  Christ  be  held  to  be  divine 
his  veracity  is  impeached,  would  hardly  be  worth  noticing,  had 
it  not  been  put  forth  with  some  pretensions,  by  a  certain  sort  of 
reasoners.  Thus  one  says,  "  this  doctrine  attributes  to  Jesus 
deceit,  equivocation,  and  falsehood."  And  he  adds,  "  we  cannot 
endure  to  have  the  name  of  Jesus,  even  by  supposition,  coupled 
with  fraud  and  dishonesty."  "  We  hold  a  belief  of  his  integrity 
among  our  fondest  persuasions,  and  this  belief  nothing  would 
tempt  us  to  resign."  But  he  then  goes  on  to  show  that  this  be- 
lief which  nothing  would  tempt  him.  to  resign,  he  must  inevita- 
bly give  up  if  Christ  were  omnipotent  and  yet  said,  I  can  of 
mine  own  self  do  nothing:  if  infinitely  good,  and  said,  There  is 
none  good  but  one,  that  is  God:  if  omniscient,  and  yet  asserted, 
Of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man,  neither  the  Son,  but  the 
Father. 

Eager  and  unskilful  disputants  are  often  earnest  to  resolve 


410  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

every  question  they  discuss,  if  possible,  into  a  question  about  per- 
sonal veracity  or  the  moral  character  of  the  individuals  who  are 
the  subjects  of  controversy.  This  is  an  easy  way  of  seeming  to 
Kettle  a  difficult  subject,  which  requires  from  its  very  nature  a 
prolonged  and  careful  investigation.  The  question  in  the  case 
before  us  is  thus  transferred  from  critical  to  moral  grounds;  from 
being  a  question  about  natures  and  persons,  difficult  to  under- 
stand, into  being  a  question  about  the  truthfulness  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  argument  might  be  good  for  one  side,  if  it  had  not 
the  unfortunate  quality  of  being  just  as  applicable,  with  a  wider 
extension,  on  the  other. 

This  Being  of  perfect  veracity  and  unimpeached  openness  did 
so  speak,  that  He  was  understood  to  claim  equality  with  God. 
He  who  prayed  to  the  Father,  did  claim  that  the  Son  should  be 
honored  even  as  the  Father.  He  asserted  virtual  omnipresence, 
when  He  told  his  disciples  that  He  would  be  with  them  even  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  While  He  said  that  He  knew  not  the  day 
nor  the  hour,  He  also  said  that  He  knew  the  Father  even  as  the 
Father  knew  Him.  While  He  asserts  that  He  can  of  his  own 
self  do  nothing,  to  Him  is  also  ascribed  all  power,  even  crea- 
tive power — and  if  the  fact  of  creation  does  not  involve  the  idea 
of  omnipotence,  we  confess  that  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  our 
thoughts  to  form  any  conception  of  it.  If  creative  power  can 
be  given  to  a  creature,  then  the  prime  distinction  between  a 
creator  and  a  creature  is  at  once  subverted.  If  omnipotence  and 
omniscience  can  be  imparted  to  a  being  who  is  by  nature  finite 
in  power  and  knowledge,  all  distinction  between  the  attributes 
of  God  and  those  of  his  creatures  must  at  once  be  done  away. 

And  if  the  question  of  Christ's  veracity  is  to  be  raised  in  con- 
nection with  the  discussion  respecting  his  natures,  we  may 
boldly  assert  that  it  is  more  seriously  impeached  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  He  was  not  divine  than  in  any  other  way.  His  char- 
acter receives  its  darkest  shade  when  we  try  to  conceive  how  a 
being  only  derived  and  dependent  could  ever  use  words  which 
even  seemed  to  imply  an  equality  in  any  sense  with  the  Almighty 
Father:  how  such  a  one  could  place  Himself  in  the  midst  be- 
tween heaven  and  earth,  and  claim  to  fill  up  all  the  space  between, 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  411 

and  say  in  the  most  unqualified  terms,  no  man  cometh  unto  the 
Father  but  by  me:  how  one  who  was  finite  in  his  knowledge  could 
say,  or  how  it  could  be  said  of  Him,  that  He  was  to  be  the  final 
Judge  of  the  character  and  destiny  of  all  who  have  lived  here 
on  the  earth.  Here  is  not  merely  a  want  of  veracity,  here  is 
such  pride  as  astounds,  such  arrogance  as  confounds  us,  unless 
there  be  such  divinity  as  may  claim  our  homage.  We  must 
turn  from  Him  as  a  usurper,  if  we  do  not  bow  to  Him  as 
a  Lord. 

V. — Another  objection  which  has  been  somewhat  strenuously 
urged  against  the  doctrine  of  The  Two  Natures  in  the  One 
Person  is,  that  it  is  derived  from  Gnostic  or  heathen  sources; 
that  the  pure,  original  faith  was  perverted  by  foreign  elements, 
the  pure  fire  was  mingled  with  strange  fire  brought  from  heathen 
altars,  a  dependent  being  was  deified,  and  idolatry  was  intro- 
duced into  God's  own  church. 

Now  the  deification  of  a  man  is  one  of  the  grossest  forms  of 
heathenism :  there  is  no  idolatry  worse  than  this.  At  the  same 
time  as  a  historical  fact  it  is  undeniable  that  Christ  has  been 
honored  as  a  divine  being  in  the  Church  from  the  earliest  ages, 
and  that  the  number  of  those  who  have  refused  their  homage 
has  always  been  inconsiderable.  If  this  be  idolatry,  several 
things  follow.  It  follows  that  the  Jewish  religion  as  a  whole 
was  much  purer  than  the  Christian,  for  the  Jews  worshipped 
God  alone.  It  follows  that  Mohammedanism,  in  its  doctrine 
respecting  God,  has  been  on  the  whole  superior  to  Christianity. 
It  follows  that  in  respect  to  the  essential  point  of  all  religion, 
viz.,  whom  and  what  we  shall  worship,  the  church  has  been  in 
a  fatal  error  or  delusion,  and  that  not  for  a  few  centuries  but 
in  every  century  of 'its  course.  It  follows  that  Christianity 
conquered  heathenism  only  by  yielding  to  heathenism,  for  it 
adopted  one  of  its  grossest  superstitions.  It  follows  that  what 
has  been  taught  with  the  largest  and  longest  consent  may  yet 
be  only  a  pernicious  error.  It  follows  that  the  church  of  Christ 
has  erred,  fatally  erred,  not  in  a  matter  of  outward  form,  not  in 
a  point  of  secondary  and  derived  significancy,  but  in  a  point 
of  vital  importance,  involving  the  very  substance  of  its  faith  \ 


412  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

has  erred,  not  now  and  then,  but  always,  through  all  its  centu- 
ries; that  it  is  in  fact  heathen  and  not  Christian. 

Does  not  such  a  position  as  this  go  as  far  as  any  can  to 
undermine  our  faith  in  Christianity  itself,  and  to  leave  us  with- 
out any  standard  of  truth,  without  any  settled  conviction  in 
the  reality  of  God's  government  and  guidance  of  his  church? 
It  iaay  all  be  consistent  with  the  position  that  it  is  human  to 
err,  it  is  hardly  so  consistent  with  Christ's  promise  that  He 
would  give  to  his  followers  the  Spirit  of  Truth.  It  is  more 
in  harmony  with  the  notion  that  a  few  men  in  these  later 
times  have  gained  an  infallible  reason,  than  it  is  with  the 
idea  that  there  is  infallibility  in  the  body  of  Christ,  taken  as 
a  whole. 

But  yet,  it  is  said,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  heathen  had 
incarnations  and  deifications,  and  that  heathen  became  Chris- 
tians— and  what  more  natural  than  that  they  should  bring  over 
some  pf  their  old  faith  with  them  ?  But  what  if  they  had  some 
presentiment  of  the  truth,  some  troubled  and  distorted  images, 
some  scattered  rays:  and  what  if  they  found  in  the  Christian 
faith  and  in  the  Person  of  Christ  the  reality  of  that  which  had 
so  long  haunted  them  like  a  vision,  the  perfection  of  what  they 
strove  vainly  and  idolatrously  to  depict,  the  full,  concentrated 
brightness.of  what  they  had  before  known  only  in  fitful  gleams? 
What  if  there  was,  after  all,  something  of  truth  even  in  Pagan- 
ism? Is  this  so  impossible  to  be  believed?  If  an  Egyptian 
had  ever  gone  from  his  temples,  where  grotesque  images  were 
piled  together  in  every  variety  of  incongruity  and  deformity, 
into  a  Grecian  temple  where  statues  that  realized  the  ideal  of 
majesty  and  beauty  met  his  gaze,  might  he  not  at  once  have 
felt  that  here  was  the  visible  representation  of  that  which  his 
own  misshapen  deities  only  caricatured?  Might  he  not  have 
forsaken  his  hateful  gods  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  these  mira- 
cles of  art?  May  it  not  have  been  somewhat  thus  with  the 
Christian  Incarnation  in  its  relation  to  the  heathen  deifications? 
What  they  grossly  imagined  was  here  perfectly  realized.  What 
was  in  them  idolatry  was  purified  in  the  Christian  faith  into  the 
most  perfect  form  of  worship.  When  Satan  cannot  create  a  lie 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  413 

he  caricatures  the  truth.  Error  is  best  overcome  by  showing 
the  highest  and  perfect  form  of  the  truth  with  which  it  is  com- 
mingled. The  heathen  bowed  before  the  Person  of  Jesus,  and 
for  Him  renounced  their  idols,  because  they  saw,  that  what  they 
ignorantly  worshipped  was  here  declared  unto  them. 

In  respect  to  this  objection,  then,  we  say,  that  the  doctrine 
respecting  the  Person  of  Christ  was  not  derived  from  heathen 
sources,  but  that  it  is  the  perfect  form  of  expressing  a  truth 
dimly  apprehended  by  heathen  superstitions.  No  heathen  re- 
ligion ever  contained  such  a  sublime  truth  as  that  the  human 
and  divine  natures  were  perfectly  united  in  one  Person,  although 
there  was  in  heathenism  a  preparation  for  such  a  truth. 

And,  besides,  we  do  not  find  that  those  who  make  such  an 
objection  are  always  consistent  with  themselves.  When  they 
would  prove  the  being  or  the  unity  of  God,  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments,  they  derive 
some  confirmation  to  their  faith  in  these  truths  from  the  general 
consent  of  men,  from  the  dim  light  of  heathenism.  What  then 
if  we  call  these  also  heathen  doctrines?  The  reply  would  be, 
Yes,  but  Christian  also,  clearer  and  purer  in  Christianity.  But 
if  this  argument  be  of  weight  in  these  cases — as  it  assuredly  is — 
it  is  still  more  weighty  in  respect  to  the  Incarnation.  For  here 
is  a  truth  more  generally  anticipated,  most  grossly  defiled,  which 
arises  in  the  fullest  purity  and  splendor,  and  commands  the 
homage  of  the  world.  In  the  Incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Word, 
in  this  union  of  perfect  divinity  and  perfect  humanity,  divinity 
is  brought  down  to  earth,  and  humanity  is  raised  to  heaven,  hu- 
manity is  ennobled  and  divinity  is  made  apparent. 

This  charge  of  approximation  to  heathenism  does  not  lie 
against  the  position  of  those  who  hold  that  God  became  man, 
but  it  does  lie  against  the  view  of  those  who,  while  asserting 
the  intrinsic  inferiority  of  Christ  to  the  Father,  do  yet  not  scru 
pie  to  say  that  he  has  become  an  object  of  rightful  worship. 
This  is  deification,  this  is  the  making  of  a  god,  this  is  the 
theory  of  the  person  of  Jesus  which  is  strictly  allied  to  the 
notions  of  heathenism :  for  to  worship  any  being  le&s  than 
God  is  idolatry. 


414  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

VI. — The  last  objection  we  shall  notice  that  is  brought  against 
the  received  doctrine  of  the  God-man  is,  that  it  involves  contra- 
dictions. It  is  said  that  what  we  assert  of  Him  either  will  force 
us  to  acknowledge  two  persons — and  this  would  destroy  our 
doctrine — or,  if  we  hold  to  One  Person,  then  that  person  is  made 
&p  of  such  contradictory  traits  that  He  becomes  an  absurdity, 
an  absolute  impossibility. 

It  should  be  observed  that  this  same  difficulty,  or  the  sub- 
stance of  it,  lies  against  any  scheme  which  allows  to  Christ  any 
other  than  a  mere  human  nature.  If  we  allow  a  pre-existent 
and  super-angelic  state,  in  which  Christ  ever  derivatively  had 
another  nature  or  other  powers  than  those  he  had  as  a  man, 
the  same  difficulty  presses  upon  us.  It  is  a  difficulty  which 
vanishes  only  with  the  more  difficult  assumption  of  the  mere 
humanity  of  our  Saviour. 

It  should  also  be  asked,  whether  we  really  know  just  what 
a  person  is,  whether  we  know  it  so  far  as  to  be  able  to  decide 
just  what  variety  of  qualities  and  attributes  any  being  must 
have  in  order  that  he  remain  one  person  and  do  not  become 
two  persons.  We  know  that  man  is  mortal  and  immortal,  spir- 
itual and  material,  that  his  whole  character  is  made  up  of  con- 
trasts— selfishness  and  benevolence,  pride  and  humility,  thought 
and  feeling,  freedom  and  dependence,  that  he  may  be  spiritual 
and  worldly,  sinful  and  holy.  And  the  higher  we  ascend  in  the 
scale  of  being  the  more  do  contrasts  accumulate.  Do  these 
things  destroy,  or  in  the  least  impair,  the  unity  of  man's  per- 
son ?  Does  not  his  very  superiority  to  the  brutes  consist  in  his 
uniting  in  one  person  a  great  variety  of  diiferent  and  almost 
opposite  traits?  Is  not  the  unity  of  his  person  found  in  the 
harmonious  operation  of  the  respective  powers  of  a  spiritual 
soul  and  a  material  body?  And  in  the  highest  point  of  view, 
this  finite  creature,  this  mortal  man  can  become,  is  bound  to 
become,  a  temple  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  be  in  some  sense  a 
partaker  of  the  divine  nature.  And  the  more  completely  his 
finite  and  imperfect  nature  is  filled  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  the 
higher  is  our  idea  of  him  as  a  person.  True,  we  cannot  under, 
stand  how  God's  Spirit  acts  upon  and  in  man's  soul,  but  we  do 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  415 

know  that  it  does  not  in  the  least  impair  the  unity  of  his  person, 
although  it  acts  in  direct  and  constant  opposition  to  many  of 
his  natural  tendencies  and  aims. 

Such  a  view  even  of  human  nature  might  lead  us  to  be  care- 
ful  in  our  assertions  as  to  what  may  and  what  may  not  destroy 
the  unity  of  a  person.  And  when  we  come  to  think  of  a  divine 
Person,  and  to  endeavor  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  his  unit- 
ing in  himself  a  two-fold  nature,  it  is  at  least  befitting  our  ig- 
norance that  our  statements  should  be  most  cautious.  Who 
can  tell  what  are  the  possibilities  of  deity?  We  can  know 
them  only  as  they  are  revealed.  If  a  human  being  can  unite  in 
himself  such  opposite  traits  as  we  know  that  we  do,  who  will 
dare  set  limits  to  the  capacity  of  a  divine  being,  and  to  set  the 
limits  in  such  a  way  as  to  assert  the  absolute  impossibility  of 
his  becoming  man? 

The  objection  we  are  considering  is  one  that  is  meant  to  de- 
stroy the  very  possibility  of  the  doctrine  of  the  God-man,  to 
destroy  the  possibility  of  the  existence  of  a  doctrine  whicn  has 
been  held,  age  after  age,  with  the  firmest  faith,  by  the  church  of 
Christ.  It  is  a  bold  thing  to  say  that  anything,  not  contradic- 
tory nor  sinful  in  its  nature,  is  impossible  with  God.  We  should 
rather  naturally  expect  that  when  God  engaged  in  his  greatest 
work,  He  would  manifest  himself  in  a  manner  beyond  our  com- 
mon thoughts.  But  philosophy  and  reason  here  come  in  and 
say,  that  one  particular  mode  of  manifestation  is  an  impossibility, 
that  a  God-man  cannot  be. 

Now  we  conceive  that  in  the  idea  of  Person  there  is  nothing, 
so  far  as  we  know  it,  which  has  any  bearing  upon  the  objection. 
A  person  is — the  same  conscious  being,  the  same  individual,  the 
being  who  can  say  I,  under  every  variety  of  circumstances.  The 
definition  of  person  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  greater  or  less 
variety  of  attributes  or  qualities  which  the  person  may  possess. 
The  person  is — the  same  subject  under  all  conditions.  This  is 
what  we  affirm  of  Christ:  He  was  the  same  identical  Person  in 
heaven,  on  earth,  and  in  his  glorified  state.  Ho  is  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  He  was  the  same  being  in  dif- 
ferent states.  And  why  may  not  the  same  person  assume  e 


416  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

different  nature  without  loss  of  identity — who  will  show  it  tc 
be  impossible  ? 

But,  it  is  said,  that  when  we  assert  that  Christ  assumed  a 
human  nature,  and  united  it  with  a  divine,  we  assert  that  He 
united  not  merely  opposite,  but  contradictory  qualities  in  the 
same  Person.  But  this  is  what  we  deny.  A  contradiction  is  to 
be  proved  only  when  it  is  said  that  the  same  assertion  is  both 
true  and  not  true  in  respect  to  the  same  thing  in  the  same  sense 
If  a  man  says  that  any  act  of  his  is  both  sinful  and  holy  in 
the  same  sense,  or  that  any  act  of  his  was  both  free  and  neces- 
sary in  the  same  sense,  here  is  a  contradiction.  But  if  a  man 
says  of  himself  that  he  is  white,  he  is  not  understood,  even  by 
those  who  interpret  everything  most  figuratively,  as  meaning  to 
say  that  his  soul  is  white.  When  a  man  says  he  thinks,  he  does 
not  mean  that  his  body  thinks.  This  assertion  that  he  thinks 
cannot  be  interpreted  of  the  wliole  of  his  complex  nature,  and 
yet  it  is  a  person  who  has  a  complex  nature  that  does  think,  and 
yet  again,  it  is  only  a  person  who  has  a  spiritual  nature  that  can 
say  that  he  thinks.  So  Christ  may  say  that  He  is  weak  and  de- 
pendent and  suffering,  and  He  may  pray  to  God,  and  yet  He 
cannot  be  understood  as  affirming  what  is  contradictory  to  his 
omnipotence  and  divinity,  unless  it  be  said  that  He  means  to 
affirm  that  his  omnipotence  was  weak,  and  his  divine  bliss  was 
suffering,  and  his  uncreated  nature  was  praying  to  itself.  The 
two  natures,  the  divine  and  human,  are  not  contradictory  to  one 
another.  There  is  no  contradiction  between  the  finite  and  the 
infinite:  if  there  were,  God  could  not  create  anything.  They 
are  in  startling  contrast  to  each  other:  they  are  opposites,  but 
they  are  not  contradictories.  If  there  were  a  contradiction  be- 
tween a  divine  nature  and  a  human  nature,  we  should  have  an  im- 
passable gulf  between  us  and  God.  And  if  these  are  not  contra- 
dictory, who  shall  say  that  they  may  not  be  united  in  one  Person  ? 

But  let  us  narrow  the  objection  down  to  its  directest  appli- 
cation. It  is  said,  the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  requires 
the  assertion  that  Christ  in  the  same  mental  act  was  conscious 
of  opposite  states:  that  when  He  was  suffering  on  the  cross, 
He  was  conscious  of  the  intense  felicity  of  heaven:  that  when 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  417 

Fie  prayed,  He  was  at  the  same  instant  conscious  of  omnipotence 
that  when  He  said  He  knew  not  the  day,  He  was  also  conscious 
at  the  same  instant  that  He  did  know  the  day :  that  when  He 
was  a  slumbering  infant,  He  was  conscious  of  being  the  Lord  of 
all:  that  while  He  grew  in  knowledge,  He  was  conscious  of  om- 
niscience* and  a  consciousness  of  contradictions  is  no  conscious- 
ness at  all.  Reduced  to  its  last  terms,  the  objection  resolves  itself 
into  the  dilemma,  that  He  either  had  a  two-fold  consciousness, 
and  so  was  two  persons,  O)  was  conscious  of  entirely  opposite 
things  at  the  same  time  in  the  same  act. 

Now  what  if  there  be  a  difficulty  here  which  we  cannot  per- 
fectly explain  ?  It  is  a  difficulty  like  to  that  we  find  in  respect 
to  other  truths,  which  we  are  still  compelled  to  admit.  For  ex- 
ample, in  the  act  of  regeneration  God's  Spirit  works  in  man,  and 
man  is  free :  and  both  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  and  freedom  are 
involved -in  the  same  mental  act.  We  cannot  see  how  this  can 
be,  yet  we  know  that  it  must  be  so.  And  man,  when  under  the 
highest  influence  of  this  Spirit — an  influence  opposed  to  his  natural 
tendencies — remains  still  the  same  individual  person,  and  has 
only  a  single  consciousness.  Man  may  be  in  as  opposite  states 
as  those  of  sin  and  holiness,  and  yet  have  only  one  consciousness. 

But,  it  is  said,  man  has  after  all  only  one  nature:  but  Christ 
is  affirmed  to  have  had  two  natures. — Does  then  a  two-fold  na- 
ture demand  a  two-fold  consciousness  ?  We  are  spiritual  and 
we  are  material,  and  have  only  one  consciousness,  but  that  con- 
sciousness may  be  at  different  times  of  things  as  opposite  as  mat- 
ter and  spirit.  This  consciousness  of  opposite  things  does  not 
destroy  the  unity  of*  the  consciousness  itself.  And  so  it 'is  of 
Christ,  in  respect  to  most  of  the  points  alleged.  He  was  con 
scious  that  so  far  as  He  was  human  He  was  weak,  and  so  far  as 
divine,  was  omnipotent.  He  was  not  conscious  that  as  human 
He  was  omnipotent,  or  as  divine,  was  a  sufferer.  This  would-be 
a  contradiction. 

The  strongest  case  is  that  in  respect  to  his  ignorance  of  the 
day  and  hour  of  judgment.  He  said  that  He  knew  it  not.  And 
the  inference  made  is,  that  if  He  knew  it  in  any  way  at  all, 
whether  as  divine  or  human,  it  was  a  contradiction  for  Him  to 


418  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

say  that  He  knew  it  not.  Two  things  may  be  suggested  here, 
(1)  What  if  He  did  not  know,  as  He  then  was  in  his  state  not 
only  of  humanity  but  of  humiliation — does  this  invalidate  in 
the  least  the  evidence  of  his  divine  nature  ?  What  if  his  as- 
sumption of  human  nature  made  it  impossible  for  Him  to  ex- 
ercise his  divine  prerogatives,  what  if  his  human  body  did  not 
and  could  not  permit  Him  to  be  at  the  same  time  and  at  all 
times  conscious  of  omnipotence  and  omniscience,  deprived  Him 
of  the  constant  sense  of  divine  bliss  and  perfections, — would 
this  prove  that  they  were  not  his,  or  would  it  only  prove  that, 
when  He  came  into  the  flesh,  He  submitted  to  all  the  conditions 
of  the  flesh  ? *  There  are  states  of  the  human  body  in  which 
we  cannot  and  do  not  exercise  the  powers  and  knowledge  which 
we  undeniably  possess.  Is  it  said  that  an  undying  conscious- 
ness of  perfect  power,  knowledge,  and  happiness  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  divinity? — it  is  granted — but  that  does  not  prove 
that  it  is  essential  to  divinity,  when  divinity  is  united  to  human- 
ity. So  thought  and  feeling  are  essential  to  the  idea  of  spirit, 
but  there  is  little  thought  in  an  infant,  and  often  no  thought  at 
all  in  sleep.  It  is  said  that  here  there  is  something  which  no 
one  can  understand?  That  is  granted:  it  is  a  mystery,  but  a 
mystery  is  not  a  contradiction.  And  all  that  the  objection 
really  amounts  to  is  this:  that  we  do  not  know  the  exact  con- 
ditions upon  which  the  divine  and  human  natures  .may  be  united. 
And  what  the  objection  asserts  is,  that  there  must  have  been  at 
every  instant  in  the  soul  of  Christ  here  upon  the  earth  an  equal 
consciousness  of  his  divine  attributes  and  of  his  human  acts. 
But  this  assertion  is  totally  without  proof:  it  is  an  assumption : 
it  is  a  conclusion  which  we  deny  to  be  legitimate  from  the  doc- 
trine of  the  two  natures;  because  we  can  really  conceive  that 
it  was,  if  we  cannot  prove  that  it  must  have  been,  otherwise. 

(2)  But  there  is  a  second  consideration,  which  is  this:  A  con- 
tradiction cannot  be  made  out  even  on  the  supposition  that 
Christ  did  know  of  the  day  as  God,  and  was  ignorant  of  it  as  a 

1  [This  suggestion  is  drawn  from  a  source  which  was  not  included  in  the  author's 
lectures  on  theology.  In  these  lectures  he  rejects  the  entire  doctrine  of  Kenosis. 
Perhaps,  if  he  had  revised  what  is  given  above,  he  would  have  made  some  modifi- 
cations.] 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  419 

man.  A  contradiction  can  be  established  only  when  it  is  affirmed 
that  in  the  same  state  of  mind,  He  both  knew  it  and  did  not 
know  it.  But  if  his  mind  existed  in  successive  states — and  if 
He  was  a  man,  it  could  not  be  otherwise — one  state  may  have 
been  that  of  the  predominance  of  the  human,  and  another 
state  that  of  the  predominance  of  the  divine  nature:  one  state 
may  have  been  that  in  which  the  future  was  hidden,  and  another 
state  that  in  which  the  future  was  clear:  one  state  may  have 
been  that  in  which  He  spoke  to  his  disciples,  and  another  that 
in  which  He  had  held  direct  intercourse  with  the  Father.  And 
the  full  expression  of  his  state  of  soul  at  that  moment,  when  the 
weakness  and  ignorance  of  humanity  predominated,  may  have 
been — of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  man,  no,  not  the  Son, 
but  the  Father  only.  Perhaps  the  very  aiternpt  to  analyze  the 
consciousness  of  Christ  demonstrates  that  the  task  is  beyond  our 
powers:  the  only  reason  for  attempting  it  is  to  show  that  no 
such  contradiction  can  be  proved  to  exist  as  would  destroy  all 
possibility  of  proving  the  existence  of  a  complex  nature  in  our 
Saviour. 

We  cannot  dismiss  this  objection  without  remarking  that  in 
the  highest  point  of  view,  so  far  from  being  an  objection  to, 
it  may  even  become  an  argument  for,  our  faith.  The  highest 
truths  are  those  which  reconcile  the  greatest  opposites.  The 
best  system  is  not  one  made  up  of  one  idea.  Wherever  we 
look  we  find  apparent  contradictions,  but  real  harmony.  In  all 
great  doctrines  there  is  something  which  to  the  superficial  view 
seems  contradictory.  A  comprehensive  theology  combines  these 
opposite  elements,  and  tries  to  show  their  consistency.  Even 
where  we  cannot  understand  how  opposite  truths  can  co-exist,  we 
cannot  deny  but  that  they  have  an  equal  claim  to  existence  and 
assent.  Predestination  is  not  really,  though  it  may  be  seemingly, 
inconsistent  with  free  will.  A  system  which  denies  the  divine 
purposes  is  a  system  without  a  God,  a  system  which  denies  free 
agency  is  a  system  without  a  man.  Even  in  our  own  minds 
there  is  something  of  the  same  sort.  Nothing  is  so  free,  nothing 
is  so  constraining  as  love.  We  find  our  highest  freedom  in  our 
most  perfect  submission.  The  power  of  law  is  greatest  in  the 


420  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

freest  countries.  Calvinists  have  been  most  zealous  for  political 
and  religious  liberty.  We  cannot  understand  our  own  acts 
without  bringing  in  a  divine  agency.  When  God  acts  in  the 
world  He  employs  a  secondary  agency.  We  cannot  understand 
history  unless  we  combine  a  knowledge  of  the  deeds  of  man 
and  of  the  providence  of  God.  Even  sin  itself  must  be  brought 
into  a  direct  relation  with  the  divine  purposes,  and  has  been  the 
occasion  of  the  highest  manifestation  of  divine  love. 

Perhaps,  if  our  philosophy  could  reach  so  high,  we  should  see 
that  when  sin  had  separated  between  God  and  man,  when  di- 
vinity and  humanity  had  been  sundered,  not  only  by  a  differ- 
ence in  nature  but  also  in  character,  it  was  impossible  for  a 
reunion  to  be  effected  by  any  other  person  than  a  God-man. 
That  this  was  absolutely  necessary,  it  were  presumption  to 
assert:  it  were  greater  presumption  to  deny  that  it  was  neces- 
sary. That  such  a  Person  alone  fitted  Him  for  such  a  work,  we 
dare  not  say:  that  He  is  eminently  fitted  for  this  work,  we  can 
even  see,  and  that  there  is  a  greater  harmony  between  such  a 
work  and  such  a  person  than  between  such  a  work  and  any 
other  person  whom  we  can  conceive  to  exist.  We  may  venture 
to  affirm:  the  God-man,  by  his  two-fold  nature,  was  better 
fitted  to  make  an  atonement,  than  God  alone,  than  man  alone, 
than  any  angel  or  archangel,  or  than  any  of  the  seraphic  or 
cherubic  host,  or  than  all  the  hosts  of  heaven  combined. 

How  deeply  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is  involved  in 
the  whole  Christian  system  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  de- 
nial of  this  doctrine  leads  to  the  denial,  one  after  one,  of  all  the 
distinguishing  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith.  A  system  with- 
out this  doctrine  ceases  to  urge  the  doctrines  of  grace.  It  loses 
its  hold  on  the  strongest  feelings  of  the  conscience  and  of  the 
heart.  It  relapses  into  the  commonplaces  of  the  most  meagre 
divinity.  It  refuses  to  grapple  with  the  great  questions  of  the- 
ology. It  praises  the  moral  virtues:  it  wonders  at  all  zeal.  It 
has  lost  the  feeling  of  the  constant  presence  of  that  Captain  of 
our  Salvation,  who  has  inspired  the  faith,  quickened  the  ardor, 
aroused  the  intellect,  and  led  forth  the  hosts  of  Christendom. 
"  Its  relation  to  Christ,"  as  has  been  well  said,  "  is  a  past,  a 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSEL*.  421 

dead  relation,"  and  so  they  eulogize  him  as  they  do  a  hero,  and 
venerate  him  as  they  do  a  saint;  but  such  eulogy  and  such 
veneration  are  faint  and  heartless  when  compared  with  the  liv- 
ing energy  of  the  faith  of  Paul,  or  with  the  devoted  love  and 
absorbing  contemplation  of  the  beloved  disciple  who  ever  spake 
and  lived  as  in  the  presence  of  a  living  Lord.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it  is  true,  that  the  greatest  earnestness,  the  loftiest  faith,  the 
deepest  religious  experience,  the  most  heavenly  spirituality,  the 
most  profound  systems  of  theology,  the  most  awful  sense  of 
God's  majesty,  and  the  most  affectionate  reliance  upon  his  love 
have  been  found  in  connection  with  the  belief  in  an  Incarnate 
God.  And  surely  if  anything  can  arouse  all  our  powers,  awaken 
our  intensest  love,  make  us  self-sacrificing,  fill  us  with  the  holi- 
est zeal  and  the  purest  enthusiasm,  and  satisfy  perfectly  all  our 
wants,  it  is  living  faith  in  such  a  Lord,  who  is  not  only  a  Lord, 
but  a  brother  also:  in  whom  all  that  we  can  venerate  as  divine 
and  all  that  we  can  love  as  human  are  combined  in  perfect 
harmony. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  ENTIRE  RESULT  AS  TO  THE  PERSON  OP  OUR  LORD. 

TJie  Statement.  In  Him  the  two  natures  were  united  in  one 
Person.  Tlw  Analysis,  (a.)  The  natures  are  to  be  distinguished. 
(6.)  The  natures  are  to  be  connected.  We  are  to  consider  Christ 
not  only  as  having  the  two  natures,  but  as  having  them  in  entire 
union,  (c.)  Each  nature  remains  perfect  in  the  union:  The  God- 
head is  perfect,  the  manhood  is  perfect,  (d.)  The  union  between 
them  is  perfect,  (e.)  The  Godhead  is  that  of  the  Second  Person 
in  the  Trinity:  the  manhood  consists  of  a  body  and  a  reasonable 
soul.  The  Godhead  existed  from  all  eternity,  consubstantial 
with  the  Father:  the  manhood  was  assumed  in  the  body  of  the 
virgin  Mary.  (/.)  Thus,  the  two  natures,  united,  constitute  the 
One  Person  of  Christ. 


122  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Observations. 

1.  We  are  driven  to  the  position  of  the  One  Person  in  OUT 
Saviour  in  the  same  way  as  to  the  recognition  of  the  two  na- 
tures.    The  Bible  always  speaks  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  samo 
identical   subject — whether   in    his   primeval    state,    or   in    hia 
earthly  manifestation,  or  in  his  future  glory.     He  who  lived  on 
earth  as  a  man  was  the  same  being  that  existed  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father  before  the  world  was;  and  He  who  came  forth  from 
heaven  is  the  one  who  also  ascended  to  heaven :  He  who  left  the 
eternal  glory  for  a  season,  entered  into  it  again  for  eternity. 
There  is  one  person,  and  one  only,  yet  in  wholly  different  states, 
presented  to  us  in  the  volume  of  our  Faith. 

And  if  He  was  the  same  Person  when  in  the  world,  that  He 
was  before  He  came  into  the  world,  this  necessarily  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  the  Eternal  Word  that  constituted  the 
Person — that  it  was  He  who  was,  so  to  speak,  the  formative 
principle,  it  was  He  who  formed  and  actuated  and  gave  its  per- 
sonal character  to  this  new  combination.  He  is  the  same  person 
in  the  world,  as  before  He  came  into  the  world.  It  is  the  One 
Person  of  the  Logos  in  whom  the  two  natures  co-exist.  If  He 
existed  before  He  came  into  the  world,  when  He  came,  He  did 
not  part  with  what  He  was :  He  only  assumed  what  he  had  not 
before.  He  took  to  himself  another  nature.  The  Eternal  Word 
was  not  changed  into  a  man — but  He  was  found  in  fashion  as  a 
man — which  of  course  implies  that  his  fashion  as  a  man  was  not 
all  of  himself. 

2.  There  was  no  change  in  the  character  of  either  nature 
The  divinity  remained  entire,  the  humanity  remained   entire. 
The  humanity,  as  is  most  clearly  seen  from   many  utterances 
of  Scripture,  had  the  soul  as  well  as  the  body.     The  body  of  man 
is  the  smallest  part  of  man.     Christ's  connection  with  the  race 
would  indeed  have  been  superficial,  were  He  like  them  only 
in  outward  form,  but  not  in  the  passions  and  affections  of  the 
soul.     All  that  we  are  required  to  abstract  from  our  total  con- 
ception of  man,  in  order  to  have  a  just  and  consistent  view  of 
the  God-man,   is  a  merely  human  personality.     The  personal 
element  or  character  was  given  to  the  God-man  by  the  Eternal 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  423 

Word.  But  the  whole  nature  of  man  was  taken  up  into  this 
union— not  excluding  even  the  Will,  if  we  take  that  in  as  in- 
definite a  sense  as  it  was  taken  by  the  Council  which  decided 
that  in  Christ  there  were  two  wills — or  energies.1 

3.  The  union  thus  effected  must  also  be  conceived  of  as  real, 
substantial,  and  permanent — like  to  nothing  else,  yet  most  like 
among  things  we  know  of,  to  the  union  between  soul  and  body. 
There  are  different  kinds  of  union.  There  is  a  mechanical  union, 
as  when  two  distinct  things  are  brought  into  external  relations. 
There  is  a  magical  union — existing  only  in  imagination.  There 
is  a  union  by  absorption,  as  when  one  substance  passes  over 
wholly  into  another  substance.  There  is  a  chemical  union,  as 
when  out  of  two  substances  a  third  different  from  either  is 
formed.  There  is  a  natural  union,  as  we  mr,y  call  that  between 
our  souls  and  our  bodies.  There  is  a  union  between  God  and 
man,  as  when  his  Spirit  dwells  in  man :  and  this  may  be  of  two 
kinds — extraordinary,  as  in  his  prophets  and  chosen  messengers, 
where  knowledge  and  power  were  supernaturally  communicated 
— or,  ordinary,  in  the  operations  of  his  Spirit  in  the  souls  of 
believers.  But  the  union  of  the  two  natures  in  Christ  was  not 
mechanical,  for  their  relations  were  not  external, — the  natures 
were  not  kept  separate,  as  Nestorianism  asserted ;  nor  was  it  magi- 
cal, as  if  by  some  arbitrary  assertion  of  power  or  some  miracu- 
lous transformation,  as  Cyril  asserted;  it  was  not  natural,  as  if 
occurring  in  the  usual  course  of  things;  nor  unnatural,  as  if  a 
prodigy  were  produced;  it  was  not  effected,  as  some  pretend, 
only  when  the  Spirit  descended  upon  Him  at  his  baptism,  but 
began  with  the  beginning  of  his  human  existence ;  it  was  not 
like  that  in  the  prophets  and  inspired  men,  for  this  was  tempo- 
rary and  "  came  and  went "  ;  nor  was  it  like  the  union  between 
the  believer  and  God's  Spirit,  for  this  does  not  impart  divinity, 
but  only  divine  aid  and  grace.  But  this  wonderful  union,  so 
far  as  we  can  describe  it  positively  and  not  merely  negatively, 
was  real,  was  supernatural,  and  remains  eternal.  It  is  like  to 
nothing  else  in  the  heavens  or  on  the  earth,  yet  it  may  be  im- 

'  That  same  Council  was  careful  to  assert  that  the  human  will  was  always  sub. 
ordiuate  to  the  divine  in  all  the  acts  of  this  complex  person. 


424  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

aged  by  a  union  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  It  is  not  like 
to  anything  we  can  conceive  of  God  in  his  infinite  and  inde- 
pendent existence,  nor  of  man,  in  his  purely  human  nature — 
but  it  is  a  wondrous  harmony  and  combination  of  the  two,  such 
as  may  well  fill  our  souls  with  adoring  love ! 

It  is  like  nothing  else  we  know  of,  yet  is  most  like  the 
union  between  soul  and  body.  For,  as  in  the  union  of  soul  and 
body,  neither  loses  its  distinctive  character  and  both  conspire 
to  the  same  ends  and  form  one  person,  and  each  part  is  devel- 
oped in  perfect  harmony  and  fitness  with  the  other,  the  body 
not  limiting  the  soul's  thoughts  and  affections,  and  the  soul 
not  acting — in  a  healthful  state — with  such  intensity  as  to  mar 
even  the  most  delicate  and  sensitive  of  the  nerves  with  which 
it  comes  in  contact;  as  the  one  is  attempered  to  the  other  in 
most  perfect  fitness,  so  that  the  soul  does  not  unfold  its  powers 
too  rapidly  for  the  body  to  bear  their  intense  activity,  and  so 
unfolds  them  as  to  heighten  and  enliven  the  material  organiza- 
tion in  which  it  is  enveloped: — so,  we  may  without  irreverence 
and  without  detriment  conceive  it  to  have  been  in  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

4.  Combining  together  the  whole  of  the  Scriptural  represen- 
tations, we  may,  perhaps,  go  one  step  further  in  this  analogy, 
and  say,  that  as  in  the  soul  and  body  there  is  a  process  of  devel- 
opment, so  in  a  limited  sense  it  may  be  asserted  in  respect  to  the 
Person  of  our  Lord,  that  the  union  was  complete  at  the  begin- 
ning, yet  there  was  a  process  constantly  going  on  before  the 
perfect  divinity  was  united  to  the  perfected  humanity,  and  so 
much  only  of  the  divinity  was  imparted  at  each  stage  as  was 
necessary  for  Christ's  mission  at  that  particular  stage.  There 
may  be  a  difficulty  here,  lest  we  seem  to  infringe  upon  the  di- 
vinity; but  there  is  also  another  difficulty,  lest  we  represent 
Christ  differently  from  the  view  given  of  Him  in  the  Scriptures. 

We  are  warranted,  it  would  appear,  in  distinguishing  three 
distinct  states  of  being  of  our  Lord:  his  primeval  glory,  his  state 
upon  earth  as  a  man,  his  present  glorified  condition.  In  the 
second  of  these  states,  by  becoming  united  to  human  nature, 
He  put  Himself  under  another  law,  under  the  law  which  rcgu- 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  425 

lates  the  development  of  human  natuie.  He  came  into  a  con- 
dition of  humiliation  and  ignorance,  and  infirmity  and  suffering. 
It  was  indeed  the  Eternal  Word,  the  equal  of  God  the  Father, 
who  came  into  this  state,  but  yet  it  is  equally  true,  that  into 
this  state  He  did  come,  and  submit  Himself  to  the  change. 
There  is  indeed  a  mystery  here,  and  so  we  might  be  content 
to  leave  it:  but  the  mystery  may  be  one  of  two  things,  and 
there  may  be  a  choice  between  them.  Either, — that  as  a 
child,  a  youth,  a  man,  He  was  all  the  time  conscious  of  being 
also  an  infinite,  omnipotent,  and  omniscient  being,  and  so  united 
in  Himself  a  double  consciousness;  or,  on  the  other  hand — the 
mystery  may  be  this :  how  an  omnipotent  and  omniscient  being 
could  for  a  time  part  with  the  constant  exercise  and  conscious 
possession  of  his  divine  attributes,  and  resume  them  in  their 
fulness  only  after  his  humiliation  was  completed.  Between 
these  two  forms  of  stating  the  mystery  it  has  always  been  held 
allowable  to  make  one's  choice,  and  neither  of  them  impairs 
either  the  divinity  or  the  humanity,  or  the  union  between  them. 
There  is  a  difficulty,  in  understanding  how  a  being  who  is 
really  divine  co'uld  part  with  the  exercise  of  any  divine  attribute, 
could  denude  Himself  of  omnipotence  and  omniscience.1  This 
may  be  impossible,  yet  our  ignorance  might2  prevent  us  from 
denying  its  possibility.  We  may  perhaps  say,  that  his  divine 
nature  was  put  under  the  law  of  human  development,  was  exer- 
cised more  and  more  in  its  growth  and  progress  as  it  was  needed 
— upheld  Him  oftentimes — often  gleamed  through  in  transient 
rays  of  brightness — was  remembered  rather  than  directly  exer- 
cised— was  sometimes  increased  in  its  power,  as  when  the  Spirit 
descended  upon  Him  at  his  baptism — and  was  expected  by  him- 

1  [This  difficulty  seems  to  have  been  more  deeply  felt  by  the  author  as  he  con- 
sidered it  in  the  later  years  of  his  theological  teaching.  He  pronounces  emphat- 
ically against  every  form  of  Kenosis.  Yet  what  is  given  above  is,  so  far  as  can  be 
found,  nowhere  retracted.] 

3  [It  ought  to  be  said,  that  these  paragraphs  form  no  part  of  the  author's  mature 
theological  system.  It  is  thought  that  readers  will  have  an  interest  in  seeing  what 
turn  his  speculation  took  on  this  point.  Moreover,  what  follows  is  perhaps  the  only 
sketch  we  have  from  him  to  indicate  how  he  would  have  written  a  "  Life  of  Christ." 
It  can  only  be  said  that  the  view  which  follows  was  neither  sanctioned  nor  repudi- 
ated in  any  later  utterances.] 


426  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

self  to  be  finally  and  perfectly  resumed,  only  after  the  travail 
of  his  soul  had  been  fully  experienced,  only  after  He  had  triumphed 
over  death,  hell,  and  the  grave,  and  through  his  humiliation  and 
sufferings  purchased  our  redemption — through  his  mediatorial 
cross  come  to  his  mediatorial  crown.  Most  certainly  this  much 
may  be  averred — that  his  divinity  was  not  so  fully  maniftsied  aa 
to  be  recognized  and  believed  in  until  the  very  close  cf  his 
earthly  career.  His  disciples  did  not  worship  Him  until  they 
saw  Him  ascending  to  the  Heavens.  However  it  may  have 
been  in  his  own  soul,  whatever  may  have  been  the  state  of  his 
consciousness  (and  it  is  perhaps  impossible  for  us  to  get  any 
clear  conception  of  what  this  really  was) — it  still  remains  on  the 
face  of  the  record  of  his  life,  that  the  divine  nature  was  not  in 
any  degree  so  united  with  the  human,  did  not  so  affect  it  as  to 
prevent  the  God-man  from  being  hungry  and  weary  and  weak, 
from  bearing  all  our  infirmities,  from  suffering  the  intensest 
sorrow,  from  asserting  his  ignorance,  from  growing  in  knowl- 
edge, from  undergoing  real  and  not  apparent  death.  And  all 
this,  too,  after  the  union  had  taken  place :  for  the  union  occurred 
with  the  commencement  of  the  human  existence.  As  a  union, 
it  was  then  perfect  and  entire,  although  there  was  a  process  of 
growth  on  the  part  of  the  human  being,  and  a  gradual  impart- 
ing of  the  resources  of  divinity,  according  to  the  progressive 
power  of  the  humanity  to  endure  them. 

When  we  compare  the  Evangelists  with  the  Epistles,  we  find 
confirmation  of  this  view.  Considered  historically,  as  of  an  his- 
torical personage,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  how  the  representation 
runs  much  as  though  a  human  being  were  advanced,  through 
successive  stages,  even  to  divine  honor  and  glory.  And  the 
corrective  to  any  idea  as  though  a  man  were  deified  is  found  in 
the  constant  assertion  of  his  pre-existerit  state,  as  the  Eternal 
Word,  the  Creator  of  all  things.  Here  is  the  efficient  cause  and 
the  only  source  of  the  divinity  which  was  ascribed  to  Him.  Un- 
less He  had  been  divine  by  nature,  He  could  not  have  become 
so  by  any  sufferings  as  a  man,  or  even  by  any  gift  of  God  to  a 
creature. 

But  when  He  assumed  our  nature  He  submitted  to  all  its 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  427 

conditions.  When  his  divinity  entered  into  its  alliance  with 
humanity,  it  became  conformed  to  its  unparalleled  condition. 
Gentle  must  have  been  the  contact  between  the  Eternal  Word 
and  the  infant  child,  feeble  the  assimilation  between  such  a 
glorious  being  and  such  a  frail  tabernacle.  He  assumed,  yet 
consumed  not,  our  nature.  Flesh  and  blood  could  not  abide  the 
full  pressure  and  intense  effulgence  of  the  un dimmed  brightness 
of  the  Son  of  God  It  was  a  part  of  the  lowly  estate  which  our 
Redeemer  chose  that  He  should  become  a  very  child,  an  infant 
in  the  weakness  of  its  powers,  an  infant  whom  its  mortal  mo- 
Jier  might  press  to  her  bosom,  and  love  with  a  most  motherly 
though  most  hallowed  affection.  The  Eternal  Word  became  a 
child  without  speech,  who  was  yet  to  learn  to  call  Mary,  blessed 
among  women,  by  the  name  of  mother,  who  had  yet  to  learn  to 
speak  the  language  of  men,  though  He  had  through  eternity 
spoken  face  to  face  with  God  the  Father  as  his  co-equal  Son. 

And  under  the  care  of  this  loving  mother  and  of  his  Eternal 
Father,  Jesus  grew  to  man's  estate,  distinguished,  we  may  well 
believe,  for  every  human  excellence,  yet  not  manifesting  his  di- 
vine glory,  except  as  a  perfect  youth  and  man  is  all  that  even 
God  could  be  when  He  became  man.  He  felt  the  greatness  of 
his  work ;  He  knew  his  mission — what  it  was — yet  entered  not 
upon  it — his  divine  nature  fitted  not  his  human  nature  to  enter 
upon  it  until  he  reached  the  years  in  which  the  maturity  of 
manhood  has  begun — when  the  body  combines  freshness  and 
strength,  and  has  by  nature  the  matured  harmony  and  unison  of 
its  powers.  Then  it  was  that  the  Spirit  of  God  descended  upon 
Him;  that  his  miraculous  powers  were  exerted;  that  He  spake 
as  one  having  authority;  that  He  began  to  unfold  truth  after 
truth  to  his  chosen  followers,  leading  them  gradually  on,  step 
after  step,  through  the  recognition  of  his  mediatorship,  to  a 
knowledge  of  his  divinity.  Then  it  was  that  by  a  word  and  a 
look  He  exercised  such  gentle  and  constraining  influence  upon 
all  with  whom  He  lived.  We  may  well  believe  that  there  was 
that  in  Him  which  awed  the  vicious,  and  which  attracted  those 
who  were  seeking  after  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  that  a  mild  yet 
powerful  influence  went  out  from  Him  to  the  hearts  of  all  sus- 


428  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

ceptible  of  such  impressions.  Almost  might  we  echo  the  words 
of  the  most  eloquent  orator  of  the  Oriental  church,  "that  the 
heavenly  Father  poured  upon  Him  in  full  streams  that  corporeal 
grace,  which  is  distilled  drop  by  drop  upon  mortal  man."  But 
yet,  even  among  his  nearest  disciples,  He  was  known  only  as  a 
perfect  man.  They  were  slow  to  discern  his  divinity.  Some- 
times it  seems  to  break  through  the  veil,  like  a  hardly  suppressed 
fire,  like  a  light  flashing  in  the  darkness, — but  it  is  only  in 
broken  words,  in  sentences  that  sounded  enigmatical,  which 
were  best  preserved  and  most  fondly  pondered  by  his  beloved 
disciple.  And  He  ever  seems  to  speak  of  his  divine  glory  as 
something  He  remembered,  or  as  something  He  was  still  to 
attain  unto,  rather  than  as  an  object  of  present  and  conscious 
possession.  Once,  and  only  once,  did  it  break  through  the  veil 
of  his  flesh  and  irradiate  Him  wholly — when  He  was  transfigured 
before  the  gaze  of  three  of  his  disciples,  and  a  supernatural  bright- 
ness environed  Him.  But  at  other  times  few,  if  any,  with  whom 
He  came  in  contact  were  led  to  say  that  He  was  divine,  unless 
indeed  they  might  infer  that  none  but  a  divine  being  could  be 
such  a  perfect  man  in  the  midst  of  a  sinful  world.  And  as  Jesus 
Christ  comes  ever  nearer  to  the  termination  of  his  earthly  mis- 
sion, He  seems  on  the  one  hand  to  have  had  a  constantly  in- 
creasing sense  of  his  intimate  fellowship  with  God,  yet  on  the 
other  to  feel  more  and  more  the  burden  which  He  must  bear  all 
alone.  In  proportion  to  his  necessities  must  the  resources  of  his 
divine  nature  have  been  developed — to  sustain  Him — but,  though 
thus  sustained,  the  agony  He  endured  was  beyond  all  expression. 
Through  suffering  was  He  to  be  perfected;  by  passing  through 
death  was  his  humanity  to  be  perfectly  united  with  his  divinity: 
this  was  the  struggle  that  awaited  Him- — this  the  terrific  con- 
flict through  which  He  passed,  and  when  He  had  passed  through 
it,  then  was  the  union  between  them  perfected.  It  is  after  his 
resurrection  that  his  disciples  seem  to  have  come  to  a  believing 
acknowledgment  that  He  was  divine.  It  was  when  He  led 
them  forth  at  early  morning,  and  gave  to  them  his  last  words 
and  vanished  from  their  sight,  his  hands  extended  over  them 
in  a  parting  benediction,  that  they  knelt  down  and  worshipped 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  429 

Him.  The  sense  and  full  perception  of  His  divinity  had  now 
taken  possession  of  their  hearts.  He  led  them  on,  step  by  step; 
his  nature  was  unfolded  to  them,  degree  by  degree,  until  the 
most  incredulous  no  longer  doubted,  until  they  were  brought  to 
address  to  Him  their  prayers,  and  look  to  Him  for  present  and 
constant  aid.  They  remember  Him  as  a  man,  they  refuse  not  to 
call  Him  God.  And  while  in  the  Evangelists,  who  tell  the  story 
of  his  earthly  career,  the  humanity  is  most  apparent,  and  the 
divine  nature  rather  hinted  at  than  disclosed;  in  the  Epistles, 
it  is  the  reverse:  there  He  appears  in  glory  and  blessedness,  as 
the  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  as  the  Head  of  the  church, 
as  the  Life  of  the  believer,  as  the  object  of  direct  faith,  as  the 
Being  in  whom  all  things  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth  are  brought 
together  and  united.  There  he  appears — and  is  revealed  to  us 
— as  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  as  worshipped  by 
angels,  as  the  giver  of  eternal  life,  as  the  Lord  of  all.  There  He 
appears,  still  having  in  inseparable  union  his  divinity  and  his 
humanity,  still  the  Being  in  whom  all  of  God  and  all  of  man 
are  combined  in  perfect  union,  but  in  whom  human  nature  has 
become  perfected  and  glorified;  in  whom  the  human  nature,  in 
its  glorified  state,  is  no  hindrance  to  the  perfect  manifestation 
of  all  his  divine  attributes.  No  longer,  as  when  He  walked  the 
earth,  is  it  a  veil  to  hidden  glories:  it  is  a  transparent  medium 
by  which  the  glories  are  attempered  to  the  gaze  of  those  who 
cannot  bear  the  full  splendor  of  unmitigated  divinity.  Thus  we 
are  permitted  to  represent  Him  to  us — still  a  man,  ever  divine. 
In  Him  is  the  perfect  union  of  all  that  is  divine  and  all  that  is 
human.  All  things  in  heaven  and  all  on  earth  are  concentrated 
in  Him.  He  the  center  and  the  sun:  there  is  no  need  of  the 
light  of  the  sun,  for  He  is  the  light  of  the  heavenly  places  as 
He  was  the  light  of  this  our  darkened  earth ;  He  who  was  the 
central  object  in  earth's  history,  the  source  of  earth's  redemption, 
is  also  the  center  of  heaven's  glory,  and  the  source  of  such 
blessedness  as  only  the  redeemed  can  know. 


PART     III. 

THE  WOEK  OF  THE  MEDIATOR 


CHAPTER   I. 

PREI  fMINARY   STATEMENTS. 

§  1.   The  General  Object  of  Christ's  coming. 

The  Scriptures  declare  that  Jesus  Christ  appeared  in  the  last 
great  dispensation  to  put  away  sin,  by  the  sacrifice  which  He 
made  for  its  expiation.1  This  was  the  great  end  and  purpose  of 
the  manifestation  of  Christ  in  the  flesh.  This  is  the  culminat- 
ing point  of  the  Incarnation.  The  Son  of  God  assumed  our 
nature  that  He  might  bear  our  sins.  Other  purposes  might  be 
and  were  answered  by  his  appearing:  He  may  have  come  to 
give  us  the  model  of  a  perfect  man  for  our  daily  imitation;  He 
may  thus  have  manifested  the  moral  attributes  of  God  more 
clearly  to  man  than  they  could  otherwise  have  been  exhibited; 
He  may  have  thus  presented  to  our  adoring  love  the  perfect 
union  of  divinity  and  humanity  in  one  wondrous  Person;  but 
the  chief  reason  why  He  was  apparelled  in  the  flesh  and  dwelt 
here  upon  the  earth  was  that  He  might  suffer  and  die  for  our 
redemption.  To  this  the  prophets  give  witness ;  and  evangelists 
and  apostles  conspire  in  representing  this  as  the  one  great  end 
of  the  Incarnation.  The  Prince  of  glory  came  to  be  humbled ; 
the  Son  of  God  came  to  be  dishonored;  the  Lord  of  life  came 
to  be  slain.  He  lived  his  sinless  life,  and  so  was  as  a  Lamb 
without  spot  and  blemish  prepared  for  the  altar;  He  revealed 
God  to  us  more  perfectly,  but  chiefly  as  a  God  who  had  deter- 
mined to  manifest,  in  the  saving  of  a  lost  world,  the  highest  of 
his  attributes  in  their  harmonious  action;  He  united  in  himself 
the  two  natures,  so  that  the  awful  dignity  of  his  Person  might 

1  See  especially  Heb.  ix.  26. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  431 

give  its  full  efficacy  and  value  to  the  work  of  atonement  which 
He  wrought  out. 

§  2.  Munus  Triplex.    Christ's  Offices  as  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King. 

I. — Idea  of  this  mode  of  representing  his  offices  as  Mediator, 

Office  is,  all  that  one  is  and  does  in  a  legitimate  public  rela- 
tion; Function:  the  chief  or  any  special  object  in  a  public  office. 
Christ's  office  as  Mediator  embraces  all  that  He  was  and  did  in 
his  public  relations  as  Mediator  between  God  and  man. 

The  idea  of  the  Three-fold  Office :  The  whole  work  of  Christ 
is  the  Redemption  of  a  sinful  world:  prefaced  by  instruction 
(Prophet),  effected  by  atonement  (Priest),  carried  to  comple- 
tion in  the  course  and  consummation  of  his  kingdom  (King). 

II. — History  of  this  mode  of  representation. 

The  Jewish  Rabbins  and  Cabbalists  ascribed  to  the  Messiah 
a  three-fold  dignity:  "the  crown  of  the  Law,  the  crown  of  the 
Priesthood,  and  the  crown  of  the  Kingdom."  l 

Three  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  are  guiding  lights: 
Deut.  xviii.  15;  Ps.  ex.  4;  Zech.  vi.  13.2 

The  church  historian,  Eusebius,  speaks  of  it  as  a  common 
view  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century.3 

It  is  referred  to  by  Chrysostom  and  Theodoretus:  less  fre- 
quently employed  by  the  Scholastics,  it  was  used  by  Calvin  in 
his  Institutes,4  and  has  entered  into  the  current  catechisms5  and 
common  modes  of  thought  of  the  Reformed  churches. 

The  German  rationalists  gave  it  up  as  tropical. 

Later  Germans  have  readopted  it.  Schleiermacher,  Nitzsch 
Hase,  Rothe,  Julius  Miiller,  all  approve  it.6 

III. — Reasons  for  retaining  it. 

1.  It  must  be  conceded  to  have  strong  claims  on  the  score 
of  giving  a  living  impression  of  Christ's  whole  work,  in  a  form 

1  Schcettgen,  Horaa  Heb.  et  Talna.,  Dresden,  1742,  ii.  107,  228. 

2  Or,  Ps.  Ixxii.  8.  3  H.  E.,  i.  3.  «  Lib.  ii.  chap.  xv. 

8  Geneva  Cat.  (1545),  Heidelb.  (1562),  Westm.  Assembly's,  Ques.  23,  SLortei 
Cat.  —Even  Kacov.  Cat.  has  it. 

6  Ebrard,  Herz.  Encycl.,  Jes.  Christi.  dreifaches  Amt.— Martensen,  Dogmatik, 
p.  332,  has  some  admirable  statements.—  Krummacher,  Prophetenthum,  u.  s.  w. 
Deutache  Ztschft,  1856.~-Diestel,  Jahrb.  f.  d.  Theol.,  1862. 


432  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

at  once  adapted  to  popular  use  and  sufficiently  comprehensive. 
It  calls  up  vivid  images  of  the  whole  of  the  Mediator's  functions. 
Wo  seem  to  see  Him  as  the  Great  Teacher,  imparting  words  oi 
heavenly  truth;  as  the  High  Priest,  suffering  upon  the  cross; 
and  as  our  Prince  and  King,  ruling  in  divine  majesty. 

2.  But  we  are  disposed  to  go  still  further  in  urging  the  claims 
of  these  ancient  symbols  of  the  wisdom,  sacrifice,  and  power  of 
our  Redeemer.     They  are  valid  not  merely  in  figure,  but  also  in 
fact.     The  real  Mediator  must  be  all  these:  Prophet,  Priest,  arid 
King;  He  could  not  be  a  full  Mediator  unless  He  bore  these  three 
offices;  by  them  all  his  work  is  defined;  in  them  all  his  work  is 
comprehended. 

3.  To  illustrate  the  sense  and  need  of  these  three  offices,  we 
may  refer  to  the  fact  that  among  the  most  developed,  cultivated 
nations,  both  before  and  since  Christ's  advent,  we  find  them  in 
existence.     No  mighty  people  is  known  in  which  there  are  not 
classes  of  teachers,  priests,  and  rulers.     The  instinct  of  human 
nature,  in  relation  to  its  highest  wants,  seems  to  demand  this 
three-fold  form  of  the  highest  functions.     Even  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  sinfulness  and  degradation  of  heathenism,  there  is  this 
prophetic  and  typical  imaging  forth  of  the  grand  characteristics 
of  the  Messiah.     They  must  have  prophets  to  teach  and  to  fore- 
tell, though  their  words  were  double-tongued;  they  must  have 
priests  to  minister  at  the  bloody  altars,  though  no  real  expiation 
followed  the  sacrifice;  and  in  the  mighty  despotisms  of  Babylon, 
of  Assyria,  of  Egypt,  in  Alexander's  power  and  Cesar's  sway, 
the  regal  authority  reached  its  height  of  worldly  pre-eminence. 
These  three,  and  only  these  three,  are  found  throughout  heathen- 
ism, as  the  highest  forms  of  official  rank.     They  point,  in  symbol, 
to  the  great  offices  of  the  Messiah. 

4  As  among  the  heathen,  so  also  among  the  people  of  God, 
his  chosen  race,  we  find  the  same  three  offices,  yet  in  a  higher 
and  purer  form.  The  whole  of  the  Old  Testament  is  a  preparation 
for  the  New,  its  divine  type,  its  historical  root;  and  in  the  whole 
of  the  Old  Testament  are  the  institutions  of  prophecy,  priesthood, 
and  royal  dominion,  divinely  established  and  set  forth.  The  glory 
of  the  Israelites  was  in  these  three  offices.  Abraham  was  taught 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  433 

and  did  himself  teach,  the  name  of  Jehovah ;  as  a  priest  he  entered 
into  covenant  with  God;  and  as  a  prince  he  ruled  his  patriarchal 
house.  The  whole  history  of  the  Israelites  centers  into  these  three 
words:  Moses  and  the  prophets;  Aaron  and  the  priesthood;  David 
and  the  royal  house.  Here  were  the  grand  institutes  of  the  the- 
ocracy. For  a  thousand  years,  inspired  prophets  were  commis- 
eioned  to  teach,  to  rebuke,  to  encourage,  to  warn,  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord.  In  the  most  degenerate  times  of  Israel  they  spake 
with  the  greatest  boldness ;  in  its  lordliest  periods  they  held  up 
visions  of  brighter  days  to  come.  A  whole  tribe  was  set  apart 
to  the  office  of  the  priesthood:  the  shadow  and  symbol  of  the 
Great  High  Priest.  Kings,  also,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon,  ruled 
in  majesty,  yet  were  only  types  of  one  who  was  to  come  of  the 
stock  of  David.  The  history  of  the  Jewish  people,  in  short,  can 
only  be  understood  in  the  light  of  the  three  words:  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King. 

5.  The  wide  bearings  of  this  three-fold  office  are  further  seen 
in  the  fact  that  the  Messiah  promised  to  the  Jews  from  the  be- 
ginning was  foretold  under  the  same  grand  imagery.  As  the 
Anointed  One,  He  was  to  be  clothed  with  these  three  offices 
and  none  other:  He  was  to  be  anointed  to  preach  the  Gospel  to 
the  poor;1  as  King,  He  was  to  be  anointed  with  the  oil  of  glad- 
ness above  his  fellows;3  his  priesthood  was  to  be  through  an 
unction  from  above,3  not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  command- 
ment, but  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  The  whole  of  the 
last  part  of  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  represents  Christ  as  the  ser- 
vant of  God,  who  was  to  teach,  to  suffer  and  die,  and  to  rule  at 
last  in  majesty.  Not  David,  but  his  root  and  offspring,  was  to 
sit  upon  th*  throne  in  universal  dominion.4  He  was  to  be  a 
priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Melchisedec.  He  was  to  beai 
our  griefs;  He  was  to  be  led  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter.  He 
was  to  teach  all  nations:  to  bring  in  everlasting  righteousness; 
and  of  the  increase  of  His  government  there  was  to  be  no  end. 
The  heathen  were  to  be  his  inheritance:  from  sea  to  sea,  from 
the  river  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  was  to  be  his  do- 

i  Luke  iv.  18.  '  Heb.  i.  8;  Ps.  xlv;  Isa.  bd.  1. 

a  Heb.  v.  4,  5;  vii.  16,  17.  «  2  Sam.  vii. 


434  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

minion.  In  such  exalted  strains  did  the  prophetic  word  depict 
the  coming  glories  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  sum  of  all  this  is: 
Prophet,  Priest,  and  King. 

6.  In  the  New  Testament,  also,  we  find  complete  warrant 
for  this  three-fold  view  of  the  offices  of  the  Mediator.  The  testi- 
mony here  becomes,  if  possible,  more  full  and  distinctive.  The 
three  offices,  separated  among  the  Jews,  are  united  in  One  Per- 
son. The  carnal  Jewish  mind  expected  only  a  temporal  prince 
attended  with  the  pomp  of  earthly  magnificence;  but  their  true 
king,  anointed  of  old,  came  first  in  lowly  garb,  appeared  as  a 
simple  teacher,  suffered  indignity  and  death — yet  showed  his 
regal  power  by  conquering  death.  He  disappointed  every 
earthly  hope,  and  fulfilled  every  divine  prediction,  (a.)  He 
was  a  prophet,  acknowledged  as  such;1  He  spake  as  never  man 
spake;  He  foretold  his  own  death,  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
the  victories  of  his  kingdom;  He  reveals  God;  He  is  the  very 
Word  of  God;  He  is  at  once  the  living  Law  and  the  living  Gos- 
pel: the  Law  appears  in  Him  as  an  example,  and  the  Gospel 
as  the  truth.  His  words  are  life;  they  are  never  to  pass  away. 
Never  was  the  law  spoken  in  such  purity,  never  was  grace  de- 
clared with  such  fulness.  He  speaks  in  the  name  of  God;  He 
knows  and  teaches  all  the  divine  will.  He  reveals  new  truths; 
the  new  and  perfect  revelation  has  come  to  the  world  in  his 
teachings.  He  declares  the  future;  the  vision  of  the  whole 
course  of  things  is  drawn  by  Him  in  bold  outlines.  His  words 
abide  ever  true  and  powerful ;  they  are  sources  of  undying  life 
and  joy.  (b.)  That  the  New  Testament  also  describes  the  Medi- 
ator as  priest,  the  Great  High  Priest — priest  and  sacrifice  in  one — 
the  only  true  priest,  the  only  real  sacrifice,  we  do  not  stay  to 
argue  here.  He  offered  himself  without  spot,  unto  God,  through 
the  eternal  Spirit.  All  other  oblations  are  vain  and  ineffect- 
ual. The  whole  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  one  grand 
proof,  not  only  that  Jesus  Christ  is  High  Priest  and  Sacrifice, 
but  that  He  alone  is  such;  all  others  are  but  types  and  shadows, 
(c.)  And  the  same  Epistle,  too,  connects  his  kingly  with  his 
priestly  functions.  We  have  such  an  high  priest,  who  is  set  ou 
i  Heb.  i.  1;  John  iii.  2;  Luke  xxiv.  19. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  435 

the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of  the  majesty  in  the  heavens, 
John,  in  the  Apocalypse,  sees  the  four  and  twenty  elders  cast 
their  crowns  before  his  throne.  "Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that 
was  slain"  is  the  song  of  heaven,  "to  receive  power — ."  His 
crown  of  thorns  becomes  an  imperial  diadem.  He  works  the 
works  of  his  Father;  He  declares  to  Pilate  that  He  is  a  King; 
God  highly  exalted  Him  and  gave  Him  a  name  that  is  above 
every  name.  All  things  are  put  under  his  feet;  He  is  the  Head 
over  all  things  to  the  church. 

Thus  these  three  offices  are  ascribed  to  Christ  in  the  New 
Testament  as  well  as  foretold  in  the  Old.  And  our  Lord  him- 
self, in  that  most  wonderful  high-priestly  prayer  (John  xvii.), 
brings  them  all  together;  for  He  says,  that  He  has  manifested 
(as  a  Prophet.)  to  his  disciples  the  name  of  God:  (as  Priest)  He 
intercedes  for  them  in  his  bitter  suffering  and  tender  love:  (as 
King)  He  claims  them  as  his  own,  for  He  has  kept  them:  end- 
ing, I  declared  unto  them  Thy  name,  and  will  declare  it;  that  the 
love  wherewith  Thou  lovedst  me  may  be  in  them  and  I  in  them. 

7.  Other  titles  applied  to  Christ,  e.  </.,  Head,  Surety,  Pastor, 
io  not  so  distinctly  designate  different  offices,  and  are  not  used 
with  such  constancy  throughout  all  the  Scriptures.1 

8.  There  is  an  inherent  propriety  in  having  these,  and  only 
these  three,  as  the  offices  of  the  Mediator.     If  man  is  to  be  fully 
redeemed,  his  Mediator  must  have  these  three  functions  and 
none   others.     For    Redemption  from   sin    must   include   theae 
three  things:  it  must  give  knowledge  of  God's  plan  in  the  way 
of  revelation;  it  must  provide  an  atonement  for   sin;  and  it 
must  deliver  from  the  power  and  consequences  of  sin,  in  an 
eternal  kingdom.     And  these  three  points  are  the  ones   met, 
and  precisely  met,  in  the  three  offices  of  our  Lord.     As  a  pro- 
phet He  reveals;  as  a  priest  He  atones;  as  a  king  He  subdues 
us  unto  himself.2 

:  See  Note  in  Ridgeley's  Divinity,  i.  p.  494. 

2  It  might  perhaps  be  also  argued  that  these  three  offices  correspond  to  the 
three  great  faculties  of  the  human  mind:  to  the  intellect,  the  feelings,  and  the 
will.  As  Mediator  between  God  and  man,  Christ  must  address  and  be  adapted 
to  the  whole  man.  As  a  teacher,  Christ  addresses  our  intellect;  as  a  sacrifice,  He 
appeals  to  the  deepest  moral  wants  of  the  heart  and  conscience;  and  as  a  king. 
He  guides  and  rules  our  wills,  making  them  conform  to  his  will. 


436  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

9.  The  essential  and  almost  organic  quality  of  these  three 
offices  in  the  Christian  system  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  necessary  to  each   other:  just  as  much  as  intellect,  heart, 
and  will  are  necessary  to  each  other  as  well  as  to  man.     To 
feel,  one  must  know;  and  to  will,  one  must  both  know  and  feel. 
Even  so,  Christ  could  not  be  a  priest,  unless  He  were  a  prophet; 
nor  could  He  rule  in  a  kingdom  of  redemption,  unless  He  were 
also  both  prophet  and  priest.     His  teachings  must  prepare  and 
guide  his  disciples  to  know  the  meaning  of  his  atoning  death ; 
and  his  sacrificial  death  is  the  basis  of  his  claim  to  our  supreme 
love  as  our  Head  in  his  mediatorial  kingdom. 

10.  It  is  only  by  viewing  Christ  in  all  these  offices,  that  we 
can  be  saved  from  one-sided  and  partial  notions  of  his  work  as 
a  Redeemer.     It  is  true,  indeed,  that  He  appears  chiefly  as  a 
prophet  during  his  life;  chiefly  as  a  priest  in  the  agony  of  death; 
chiefly  as  king,  when  ascended  to  the  right  hand  of  the  Father. 
Bat  as  a  prophet,  He  teaches  us  even  upon  the  cross,  and  still 
and  ever,  by  his  Spirit,  though  He  dwells  in  heaven.     His  whole 
life  as  well  as  his  death,  was  in  his  priestly  character,  suffering 
shame  and  humiliation.     And  He  exercised  his  kingly  functions 
while  on  earth,  yea,  in  the  very  grave,  conquering  death  and 
hell  by  his  mighty  power,  as  truly  as  He  now  subdues  his  other 
foes.     And  the  grand  error,  among  all  who  do  not  receive  Lnrist 
in  his  fulness,  is  that  they  take  one  of  his  offices,  as  if  that  were 
the  whole,  neglecting  the  rest.     They  hold  to  Christ  in  one  or 
another  of  his  names,  but  not  in  the  fulness  of  his  character. 
Thus  some  take  Christ  only  as  the  Teacher;  others  dwell  most 
fondly  on  his  atoning  death;  and  others  again  view  Him  chiefly 
as  the  Lord  of  spiritual  life.     But  He  is  each  and  all.     And  we 
do  not  know  Him  fully,  nor  truly,  until  we  know  Him  in  all  his 
offices — as  our  Prophet  to  teach  us — our  Priest  who  atones — our 
King  to  rule  over  and  in  us. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  437 


CHAPTER  II. 

OF  ATONEMENT 
AND  THE  NECESSITY  FOR  ATONEMENT. 

The  Priestly  Office  of  Christ  is  that  office  in  both  natures 
whereby  He  makes  an  atonement.  In  the  same  priestly  office 
and  in  virtue  of  his  atoning  work  his  Intercession  is  maintained. 
Intercession  belongs  to  Christ  as  priest:  it  includes  his  constant 
application  of  his  sacrifice;  or,  generally,  all  his  agency  in  re- 
deeming mankind,  in  his  glorified  state.1  Of  the  two  parts  of 
Christ's  work  as  Priest — Atonement  and  Intercession — we  speak 
here  only  of  The  Atonement. 

I. — Usage  of  the  word,  and  of  certain  terms  which  cluster 
about  it. 

1.  Of  the  terms  Redemption  and  Atonement.     Redemption 
implies  the  complete  deliverance  from  the  penalty,  power,  and 
all  the  consequences  of  sin :  Atonement  is  used  in  the  sense  of 
the  sacrificial  work,  whereby  the  redemption  from  the  condemn- 
ing power  of  the  law  was  insured. 

2.  Of  the  terms  Reconciliation  and  Atonement.     Reconcilia- 
tion sets  forth  what  is  to  be  done:  Atonement,  in  its  current 
theological  sense,  likewise  involves  the  idea  of  the  way,  the 
mode,  in  which  the  reconciliation  is  effected — that  is,  by  a  sacri- 
fice for  sin.2 

1  [This  is  treated  by  the  author  under  the  Third  Division  of  Theology;  as  the 
priestly  side  of  Christ's  office  as  King.] 

2  A  writer  who  became  prominent  as  a  controversialist  on  this  subject,  wrote, 
some  years  ago:  "  Every  tyro  in  theology  knows  or  ought  to  know  that  atonement 
means  nothing  more  than  at-one-ment,  that  is,  the  reconciliation  of  opposing 
parties."     But  none  but  a  tyro  in  theology  knows  that  this  is  its  only  sense.     Even 
admitting  the  correctness  of  this  etymology,  it  must  be  said  that  this  way  of  re- 
ducing the  large  import  of  language  to  the  smallest  possible  dimensions,  by  means 
of  etymology  alone,  and  of  deciding  theological  controversies  by  an  appeal  to  the 
primitive  sense  of  words  before  they  had  gained  their  full  signification  is  one  un- 
worthy of  the  scholar  and  the  theologian.     All  the  etymology  in  the  world  would 
never  be  sufficient  to  show  that  atonement  means  only  reconciliation — for  the 
very  plain  reason,  that  for  hundreds  of  years  it  has  borne  in  the  English  language 
an  additional  sense,  that  is,  it  includes  a  designation  of  the  mode  in  which  the 
reconciliation  was  effected.    (Atonement— reconciliation,  in  Sir  Thos.  More,  Shake- 


438  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

3,  Of  the  terms  Satisfaction,  Vicarious,  Expiation,  Propitiation 
(a.)  Satisfaction.     This  is  the  most  specific  term,  in  reference 

to  the  relations  between  Christ's  sufferings  and  the  demands  of 
the  law  upon  sinners  as  condemning  them:  Christ  satisfied,  by 
his  work,  the  demands  of  the  divine  law. — The  word  may  be 
used  in  a  wider  sense:  Christ  satisfied  also  the  divine  love  and 
all  the  divine  perfections;  but  the  specific  sense  is:  He  so  satis- 
fied the  claims  of  the  divine  law,  in  respect  to  sinners,  that  these, 
through  faith,  are  freed  from  its  condemnation. 

(6.)  Vicarious.  The  term  to  designate  substitution.  Christ's 
sufferings  were  substituted  for  ours:  He  suffered  in  our  stead: 
what  He  did  is  accepted  as  if  we  did  it. — Here,  too,  there  is  a 
wider  sense,  in  which  "vicarious"  is  understood  as  meaning 
merely  in  our  behalf,  for  our  benefit.  Socinians  would  make 
this  the  only  sense.  But  specifically  the  word  is  used  to  set 
forth  that  Christ  was  a  substitute,  as  sacrificial  victims  were. 

(c.)  Expiation.  The  act  or  means  of  atoning  for  a  crime,  so 
that  in  respect  to  the  law  its  guilt  is  cancelled.  The  sense  is: 
removing  guilt,  removing  the  reatus:  not,  the  moral  defilement, 
but  the  exposure  and  obligation  to  punishment.  Expiation, 
used  in  relation  to  the  criminal,  "  denotes  that  which  is  an  ade- 
quate reason  for  exemption  from  penalty  "  (J.  Pye  Smith).  An 
expiated  offence  does  not  demand  punishment:  the  "guilt,"  i.  e., 
the  obligation  to  suffer  penalty,  is  removed. 

(d.)  Propitiation.     This  **  relates  to  the  ruler,  and  designates 

that  which  has  the  effect  of  causing  Him  to  accept  the  expiating 

transaction.'*     The  offender  is  expiated,  God  is  propitiated:  not 

.hat  any  change  in  God's  essential  mercifulness  is  effected,  but 

hat  his  holiness  no  longer  demands  punishment. 

4.  Sacrifice.    Here  too  we  find  the  wider  and  the  specific  sense.1 
This  most  important  term  is  reserved  for  another  chapter. 

II. — Of  the  Necessity  of  the  Atonement. 

The  necessity  of  the  atonement  (not  a  natural,  physical,  01 
metaphysical  necessity)  is  affirmed  most  specifically  in  opposition 

speare,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Bps.  Hall  and  Taylor;  =expiation,  in  Milton, 
Swift,  and  Cowper.     Waterland  (Disc,  of  Fundamentals,  v.  p.  82): — "the  doctrina 
of  expiation,  atonement,  or  satisfaction,  made  by  Christ  in  his  blood.") 
1  "  The  Scriptural  Idea  of  Sacrifice,"  by  Alfred  Cave. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  439 

to  two  views:  (a.)  that  mere  mercy  on  God's  part,  and  (6.)  mere 
repentance  on  man's,  suffices  to  meet  all  the  exigencies  of  the 
case. 

1.  The  necessity  may  be  argued  on  rational  grounds. 

(a.)  God  is  holy,  man  is  sinful:  man's  sin  is  the  opposite  of 
the  divine  holiness:  to  bring  God  and  man  together,  some  satis- 
faction to  the  divine  holiness  is  needed. 

(b.)  Another  form:  Sin  deserves  condemnation:  that  it  may 
be  pardoned,  there  is  needed  some  mode  of  removing  the  con- 
demnation, of  taking  away  the  guilt  of  the  transgressor. 

This  mode  cannot  be  the  repentance  and  reformation  of  the 
sinner  alone:  for  (1)  if  he  could  become  holy,  his  guilt  and  de- 
sert of  condemnation  would  remain;  (2)  in  order  to  his  becoming 
holy,  or  returning  to  God,  a  knowledge  of  God's  righteous  favor 
or  holy  mercifulness  is  requisite.  The  mode  cannot  be  that  of 
mere  forgiveness:  for  this  would  satisfy  neither  the  claims  of 
the  divine  holiness  nor  the  necessities  of  a  moral  government. 
It  would  show  that  the  law  was  not  law — moral  law — but  only 
a  sequence.1 

Hence,  on  rational  grounds,  presupposing  God's  holiness  and 
man's  sin,  there  is  need  of  some  other  way — need  of  an  atone- 
ment for  sin. 

2.  This  necessity  may  be  argued  on  the  grounds  of  man's 
moral  nature :  an  atonement  is  eminently  adapted  to  man's  con- 
victions and  needs  as  a  moral  being. 

(a.)  Man's  conscience  assures  him  of  the  supremacy,  the 
absolute  supremacy,  of  righteousness — of  holiness,  and  not  of 
mere  happiness — of  that  holiness  which  is  the  highest  happiness. 
This  conviction  is  not  responded  to  by  the  mere  forgiveness  of 
the  sinner.  If  happiness  were  the  greatest  good,  then  a  for- 
giveness insuring  happiness  would  meet  all  of  man's  wants.  But 
if  holiness  be  the  chief  good,  then,  in  the  pardon  of  sin,  God 
must  appear  as  holy,  righteous,  answering  the  highest  ends  of 
his  moral  government — in  order  to  meet  our  highest  wants. 

"Mercy  is  not  itself,  that  oft  looks  so; 
-  Pardon  is  still  the  nurse  of  second  woe." 

Measure  for  Measure,  Act  II. ;  Scene  I. 


440  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

(6.)  Man's  conscience  leads  Him  to  feel  the  necessitj',  undei 
a  moral  government,  of  punishment  or  a  moral  equivalent;  not 
always  the  necessity  of  the  punishment  of  the  offender,  but  al- 
ways the  necessity  of  that  or  a  substitute  which  will  answer  the 
same  moral  end. 

(c.)  The  satisfaction  of  man's  moral  nature  in  an  atoning  sac- 
rifice proves  the  fitness  of  it  to  his  moral  wants. 

3.  The  nature  of  the  divine  law  proves  the  necessity  of  an 
atonement — of  a  sacrifice  for  sin. 

(a.)  Law  implies,  and  necessarily  sanctions,  the  punishment  of 
transgressors,  or  an  equivalent,  under  it.  A  law  without  a  pen- 
alty is  no  law.  Penalty  is  not  the  final  end  of  law,  but  it  is 
a  means  to  that  end.  Hence  there  must  be  for  transgression 
either  penalty  or  what  answers  the  same  end — which  end  is  the 
maintenance  of  holiness  in  all  its  glory.  Hence,  law  from  its 
very  nature  demands  something  which  will  answer  this  end  as 
well  as  would  the  specific  punishment  of  the  transgressor. 
Christ  said,  "  One  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from 
the  law."  He  magnified  the  law  in  his  teachings  .and  death. 
Mere  pardon  virtually  annuls  the  law — sets  it  aside — declares 
it  needless — says:  no  law. 

b.  Another  form.  Sin  always  deserves,  merits  punishment. 
The  inflicting  of  this  is,  the  distributive  justice  of  God:  render- 
ing to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds.  Holiness,  or  public 
justice,  demands  this  or  an  equivalent,  and  an  equivalent  is 
that  which  will  equally  satisfy  holiness  or  general  justice.  An 
equivalent  cannot  be  something  of  a  totally  different  nature, 
looking  to  a  totally  different  end,  providing  for  happiness  in 
stead  of  holiness. 

4.  The  necessity  of  an  atonement  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  it 
has  actually  been  made. 

(a.)  If  such  a  sacrifice  had  not  been  necessary,  it  would  not 
have  been  made. 

(b.)  The  necessity  is  directly  asserted  in  Scripture:  Mark  viii, 
31;  Luke  xxiv.  46;  John  iii.  14,  15;  Acts  xvii.  2,  3;  Heb,  viii.  3, 
ix.  22. 

5.  An  argument  for  the  necessity  of  the  atonement  may  alsc 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  441 

be  derived  from  the  general  consent  of  mankind:  everywhere 
there  are  systems  of  sacrifices. 

The  prevalence  of  sacrifices  for  sins  is  one  of  the  most  won- 
derful facts  in  the  moral  history  of  mankind.  It  is  an  article 
of  natural  religion  more  universally  held  than  the  unity  of  God 
or  even  than  immortality.  This  universality  proves  the  follow- 
ing points,  as  the  moral  conviction  of  mankind:  (a.)  That  mere 
repentance  is  not  enough,  according  to  the  natural  conscience; 
(&.)  That  some  expiation  for  sin  is  needed;  (c.)  That  this  must 
be  effected  by  the  offering  up  of  sacrifice — in  suffering  and  blood 
— instead  of,  to  take  the  place  of,  the  deserved  punishment  of 
the  guilty.1 

6.  The  grounds  of  this  necessity,  under  God's  moral  govern- 
ment, stated  in  sum. 

(a.)  The  ultimate  ground  of  the  necessity  must  be  in  God  him- 
self: there  is  that  in  the  divine  perfections  which  requires  the 
atonement.  What  is  it  ? 

(b.)  The  object  of  the  atonement  is  to  reconcile  sinful  man 
with  the  holy  God,  under  law;  or,  to  remove  the  penalty  from, 
and  restore  favor  to,  transgressors.  Then  the  necessity  must  be 
this:  God  as  a  moral  governor  could  not  otherwise  pardon  and 
justify  (=be  reconciled). 

(c.)  Why  could  He  not  otherwise?  Because  the  end  which 
would  have  been  answered  by  the  punishment  of  the  real  culprit 
must  be  in  some  other  way  attained. 

(d.)  What  is  that  end?  Not  the  punishment  of  the  culprit 
itself,  for  its  own  sake,  as  a  good:  but  the  punishment  as  a 
means  of  showing  the  divine  abhorrence  of  sin  and  sustaining 
the  honor  of  God  and  his  law. 

(e.)  The  atonement,  then,  has  its  necessity  in  this:  that  the 
divine  holiness — justice  (not  distributive  but  general)  could  not 
otherwise  be  satisfied  in  the  pardon  of  sinners. 

1  Cf.  Bib.  Sac.  vol.  i.,  p.  368  seq.,  vonLasaulx. — John  Dav.  Michaelis:  "Almost 
all  nations  have  been  unanimous  in  the  idea  of  bringing  to  the  Deity  offerings, 
particularly  with  the  shedding  of  blood,  as  the  means  of  obtaining  pardon  of  sin 
and  a  restoration  to  favor.  This  awful  idea,  which  is  the  almost  universal  im- 
pression of  the  human  race,  even  seems  to  be  a  product  of  what  the  Romans  caU 
sensus  con\munis—a  natural  dictate  of  the  sound  understanding  of  man." 


442  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

(/.)  An  inquiry.  Is  the  divine  justice  in  the  way  of  the  par- 
don  of  sinners?  (1)  Justice  is — distributive,  commutative  (not 
brought  into  consideration  here),  and  public  (or  general).  (2 )  If 
distributive  justice  be  taken  as  the  whole  of  justice,  or  as  the 
great  end  of  the  system,  and  as  requiring  the  punishment  of  the 
identical  offender — his  specific  punishment,  then  justice  would 
absolutely  forbid  pardon.  There  is  no  place  for  mercy.  (3)  But 
distributive  justice  is  subordinate  to  general  justice:  it  is  for 
general  justice.  General  justice  demands  that  the  honor  of 
the  law  be  maintained;  that  the  fact  that  sin  deserves  suffer- 
ing be  made  manifest;  that  the  great  end  of  the  system — the 
manifestation  of  the  divine  glory  chiefly  as  a  supreme  regard 
to  holiness — should  be  attained.  If  this  end  be  gained,  then 
distributive  justice  is  not  in  the  way.1 


CHAPTER  III. 

OF    THE    LEADING    SCRIPTURAL    REPRESENTATION    OP    THE  ATONING 
WORK    OF    CHRIST — THAT    IT    IS    A    SACRIFICE. 

Preliminary.  Terms  most  frequently  used  in  Scripture  to 
describe  Christ's  work. 

Redemption — as  means  of  deliverance,  and  not  as  an  accom- 
plished work:  Eph.  i.  14. 

Ransom :  Matt.  xx.  28 ;  1  Tim.  ii.  6. 

Purchase:  Acts  xx.  28;  1  Cor.  vi.  20;  vii.  23. 

Offering:  Heb.  x.  14. 

Propitiation:  Rom.  iii.  25;  1  John  ii.  2. 

Such  expressions,  figurative  as  to  means,  are  real  as  to  re- 

1  Upon  the  question,  Is  the  divine  veracity  in  threatening  punishment,  in  the 
way  of  the  pardon  of  sinners?  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  says:  threatenings  "are  not 
what  shall  be,  but  what  most  justly  may  be." — This  resolves  itself  really  into  the 
above.  The  divine  veracity  is  pledged,  not  to  strict  distributive,  but  to  complete 
general  justice.  "  It  was  not  only  the  divine  mind  that  had  to  be  dealt  with,  but 
also  that  expression  of  the  divine  mind  which  was  contained  in  God's  making  deatl? 
the  wages  of  sin."  Cave,  Script.  Doct.  of  Sacrifice,  pp.  361,  362. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  443 

suits,  that  is,  as  to  deliverance  from  the  demands  of  law  upon 
transgressors. 

Proposition.  The  grand  representation  of  the  work  of 
Christ  is  that  it  is  a  SACRIFICE — a  sacrifice  for  sin — a  sacrifice  in 
our  stead.  This  gives  us  not  merely  the  result  of  the  atoning 
work,  but  the  means,  viz. — by  his  death  as  a  sacrifice  for  us. 

To  know  the  sense  of  Sacrifice,  we  must  go  to  history.  There 
alone  do  we  get  the  ideas.  The  Scriptures  also  give  us  history ; 
the  facts  which  they  set  forth  are  part  of  what  has  occurred;  the 
terms  in  which  these  facts  are  described  have  a  proper  historical 
sense;  such  terms  are  related  more  or  less  to  the  facts  and  views 
which  stood  within  the  general  experience  and  knowledge  of 
mankind.  Hence,  in  order  to  deal  fairly  with  this  great  subject, 
we  must  consult  four  sources.  The  questions  are :  What  elements 
were  involved  in  a  sacrifice?  and,  What  are  the  constituent  ele- 
ments of*  the  sacrifice  which  Christ  made?  The  sources  from 
which  these  elements  may  be  derived,  from  which — if  we  are 
to  reason  historically — they  must  be  derived,  are  these:  (1)  The 
system  of.sacrifices  prevalent  in  the  Pagan  world;  (2)  The  sys- 
tem appointed  for  the  Jewish  worship;  (3)  The  prophecies  re- 
specting the  work  our  Saviour  was  to  accomplish;  and  (4)  The 
mode  in  which  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  are  everywhere 
spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament.  If  all  these  different  sources 
of  evidence  conspire  in  representing  the  same  leading  ideas,  then 
it  would  be  indeed  presumptuous  to  deny  the  validity  of  these 
ideas,  to-  deny  that  they  are  involved  in  the  very  notion  of  a 
sacrifice. 

§  1.   The  System  of  Sacrifices  prevalent  in  the  Pagan  World. 

The  evidence  derived  from  this  source  is  preparatory  and  pre- 
sumptive. The  sacrifices  of  the  heathen  in  the  form  which  they 
always  took,  and  in  the  reliance  put  upon  them,  were  indeed  an 
abomination.  But  if,  as  some  hold,  the  origin  of  these  heathen 
systems  is  to  be  traced  to  an  original  divine  appointment,  then 
even  in  their  perversion  and  decay  we  may  trace  some  vestiges 
of  the  divine  original:  or,  if  we  do  not  trace  them  back  to  God 


444  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

but  suppose  them  to  be  prompted  by  the  instinctive  religious 
sentiments  of  mankind,  when  feeling  its  guilt  and  sinfulness, 
still  they  may  be  of  importance  in  showing  us  what  ideas  the 
race  have  always  held,  as  to  the  mode  in  which  they  might  be- 
come acceptable  to  their  offended  deities. 

The  propriety  of  deriving  an  argument  from  this  source  may 
be  still  further  evinced  by  the  fact,  that  one  reason  why  the  gos- 
pel made  such  progress  was,  that  by  the  systems  already  prevail 
ing  men  were  in  a  certain  sense  prepared  for  the  prevalence  of 
the  Gospel.  These  false  religions,  in  their  corruption,  were  unable 
to  satisfy  men,  and  therefore  they  welcomed  anew;  but  it  is  also  true 
that  some  of  the  ideas  which  were  at  the  foundation  of  their 
false  systems  were  seen  fully  realized  and  purified  in  the  religion 
of  the  gospel.  They  recognized  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  as  a  true 
sacrifice,  because  they  saw  in  it  the  perfect  form  of  what  they 
had  so  grotesquely  mimicked  and  superstitiously  believed  in  their 
own.  forms  of  worship.  They  were  ready  to  receive  a  sacrifice 
for  sin,  because  they  had  always  believed  in  sacrifices  for  sin. ' 

Such  being  the  state  of  things,  the  question  now  comes  up, 
what  were  the  leading  ideas  which  these  ancient  nations  always 
connected  with  the  sacrifices  they  offered. 

The  basis  of  the  sacrifice  was  the  fact  of  their  sinfulness.  They 
lived  under  the  constant  sense  of  their  being  in  a  state  of  feud 
with  their  gods,  and  of  the  necessity  of  appeasing  the  wrath  of 
those  terrible  beings  who  had  the  rule  over  them.  The  sacrifice 
was  the  means  which  they  made  use  of,  which  they  supposed  ef- 
fectual, in  averting  from  them  the  wrath  of  their  deities,  and  in 
procuring  pardon  and  favor. 

And  the  sacrifice  which  they  offered  for  this  object  contained, 
and  was  designed  to  express,  the  following  leading  elements.  In 
the  first  place,  it  was  a  substitution  of  the  sufferings  of  one  being 

i  It  is  noticeable  that  just  those  persons  who  are  most  ready  to  derive  an  argu- 
ment from  the  consent  of  nations  for  the  being  of  God  or  the  soul's  immortality  are 
the  ones  who  assert  of  the  systems  of  sacrifice  prevalent  in  all  the  world,  that  they 
are  simply  the  product  of  superstition  and  priestcraft.  To  say  this,  however,  is 
to  avoid,  and  not  to  meet,  a  difficulty:  for  the  question  still  remains,  Why  did 
superstition  uniformly  take  this  form;  why  was  it  that  priests  found  the  system 
of  sacrifices  the  most  effectual  way  of  binding  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  (he 
people  ? 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  445 

for  the  sufferings  due  to  another;  in  the  second  place,  it  was  a 
substitution  of  the  sufferings  of  a  being  comparative!}'  innocent 
for  one  that  was  sinful;  and  in  the  third  place,  this  substitution 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  innocent,  instead  of  the  deserved  suffer- 
ings of  the  guilty,  was  supposed  to  have  the  efficacy  of  making 
an  expiation,  an  atonement  to  the  gods  for  the  sins  committed — 
was  supposed  to  be  of  such  virtue  that  the  deserved  punishment 
might  be  averted. 

No  one  at  all  acquainted  with  the  horrible  rites  of  heathenism, 
whether  in  ancient  or  modern  times,  will  doubt  the  existence  of 
all  these  elements  in  all  their  bloody  sacrifices.  And  when  we 
find  in  almost  all  the  heathen  nations  not  only  the  sacrifice  of 
animals  but  of  human  victims  also,  in  offering  whom  all  natural 
feeling  must  have  been  suppressed,  who  can  fail  to  see,  even  in 
this  frantic  excess  of  heathenism,  that  there  mudt  have  been  a 
mighty  power  which  held  them  so  entranced,  that  there  was  at 
the  basis  of  the  whole  system  an  unconquerable  conviction  of 
the  necessity  and  efficacy  of  sacrifices  ?  However  abhorrent  such 
a  conclusion  may  be  to  the  so-called  system  of  natural  religion, 
yet  in  all  the  actual  natural  religions  of  the  world  we  find  a  sac- 
rifice for  sin  believed  in  and  offered.  It  is  not  argued  that  these 
sacrifices  were  right  or  in  any  way  acceptable,  but  it  is  argued  that 
we  may  show  from  them  what  means  were  considered  necessary 
to  win  the  favor  of  the  deities. 

§  2.  In  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  System  of  Sacrifices  appointed 
for  God's  chosen  People,  we  find  the  same  Essential  Elements  as  in  tlie 
heathen  Sacrifices. 

The  Jews  were  to  be  a  distinct  people,  and  yet  they  retained 
the  rites  of  heathenism.  Well  has  it  been  said,  that  "  Moses, 
zealous  as  he  was  to  separate  his  people  in  all  respects  from 
Paganism,  still  retained  those  sacrifices  which  made  the  most 
prominent  part  of  pagan  worship."  The  very  parts  of  the 
old  dispensation,  too,  which  were  typical  of  the  new,  are  to  be 
found  in  the  victims  laid  upon  the  altar.  Here  are  the  bloody 
sacrifices  which  give  purification.  They  remind  one  of  heathen- 
ism — they  look  forward  to  Christianity. 


446  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

With  this  system  of  sacrifices,  which  had  been  divinely  or 
daiiied,  the  Jews  connected  the  same  ideas  which  we  have  already 
found  in  Pagan  systems.  The  sacrifice  was  vicarious.  In  the 
expiatory  sacrifices, 'the  animal  was  considered  as  having  become 
unclean,  and  its  remains  were  to  be  burned  without  the  camp,  and 
this,  as  is  expressly  declared,1  because  it  was  a  sin-offering.  When 
a  man  was  slain,  and  it  was  not  known  who  had  committed  the 
crime,  a  sacrifice  must  still  be  offered,  and  by  the  washing  of  the 
hands  the  guilt  was  transferred  to  the  victim.2  The  idea  of  inno- 
cence or  ceremonial  purity  was  also  involved  in  the  whole  transac- 
tion. The  priests  who  offered  it  were  not  only  a  separate  class, 
but  they  must  be  especially  purified  before  they  could  present 
the  offering.  The  animal  offered  must  be  without  blemish.  The 
paschal-offering  was  a  lamb — the  chosen  symbol  of  innocence. 
But  in  these  sacrifices  was  the  third  element — that  of  an  expia- 
tion for  sin — also  contained  ?  It  was  contained,  yet  symbolically 
and  typically,  rather  than  actually.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Jew- 
ish system  is  just  this,  that  it  did  not  permit  its  votaries  to  rest 
in  the  rites  themselves,  but  ever  bade  them  look  forward  to  the 
time  of  their  Great  High  Priest.  Expiation  for  sin  ivas  in  these 
sacrifices,  though  only  symbolically.  The  solemn  rites  of  the 
yearly  festival  of  expiation  show  this:  for,  while  the  goat  that 
was  killed  was  the  sin-offering,  by  which  the  sin  was  represented 
as  expiated,  the  sin  was  laid  upon  the  other,  the  scape-goat,  to 
make  a  visible  yet  symbolical  manifestation  of  the  taking  away 
of  the  guilt.  Equally  applicable  to  the  same  point  are  the  words 
which,  it  is  supposed,  contain  the  key  to  the  whole  system  of 
Jewish  sacrifices — the  words  addressed  by  Jehovah  to  Moses, 
Lev.  xvii.  11:  "For  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood;  and  I 
have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar  to  make  an  atonement  for 
your  souls:  for  the  blood  maketh  an  atonement  for  [or  "by 
means  of"]  the  soul."  The  idea  of  an  expiation  for  sin  could 
not  be  more  fully  expressed  than  in  these  words.  In  all  the 
statutes  by  which  atonement  was  to  be  made  for  sin,  we  find 
confirmation  of  the  fact  that  Substitution — of  the  Innocent — 
in  order  to  Expiation — is  a  necessary  element  of  the  religious 
1  Exod.  xxix.  14  *  Deut.  xxi.  1-9. 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  447 

faith  of  a  people  which  had  transgressed  the  law  of  God,  and 
would  become  reconciled  to  Him.  Under  the  whole  of  the 
Old  Testament  economy,  sin  was  not  forgiven  except  as  its 
desert  was  exhibited,  and  its  expiation  insured,  by  means  of 
a  vicarious  sacrifice. 

§  3.  Another  Argument  for  the  same  Position  is  derived  from 
the  Old  Testament  Prophecies  of  Christ 

A  distinct  argument  is  drawn  from  this  source,  for  two  reasons. 
(a.)  The  prophets  often  seem  to  speak  against  sacrifices,  to  rep- 
robate the  reliance  placed  upon  them ;  but  if  they  foretold  an- 
other sacrifice,  then  they  reprobated  only  the  carnal  reliance 
put  upon  those  which  but  prefigured  the  true  expiation. 
(b.)  The  prophets  stand,  as  it  were,  in  the  transition  stage 
between  the  law  and  the  gospel.  They  spake  of  a  perfect  re- 
demption  which  was  to  appear.  And  now  if  they  represent  the 
new  dispensation  which  was  to  bring  in  an  everlasting  right- 
eousness as  containing  the  same  essential  elements  with  that 
which  was  to  pass  away,  then  they  form,  as  it  were,  the  second 
premise  in  the  syllogism  of  which  the  law  is  the  first,  and  the 
New  Testament  the  conclusion.  What  the  ceremonies  and  rites 
of  the  law  expressed  in  symbols,  that  the  prophets  expressed  in 
words ;  and  both  equally  referred  to  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  the 
substance  which  the  law  foreshadowed  and  the  visible  fulfilment 
of  the  prophecies,  and  who  thus  fulfilled  both  the  law  and  the 
prophets. 

Language  cannot  express  the  elements  which  we  have  found 
to  be  contained  in  the  very  nature  of  a  sacrifice  more  distinctly 
than  we  find  them  in  Isa.  liii.,  and  to  this,  for  the  sake  of  dis- 
tinctness and  conciseness,  we  confine  our  illustrations.  There 
is  first  the  vicarious  suffering:  Surely  He  hath  borne  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows;  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions, He  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace  was  upon  Him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed ;  all  we 
like  sheep  have  gone  astray,  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the 
iniquity  of  us  all;  He  bare  the  sin  of  many.  There  is  the  inno- 
cence of  the  sufferer:  He  was  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter 


448  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  He  opened  not 
his  mouth;  for  the  transgression  of  my  people  (not  his  own) 
was  He  stricken;  He  had  done  no  violence,  neither  was  any 
deceit  in  his  mouth.  And  the  sufferings  of  this  innocent  victim 
procured  the  expiation  of  the  sins  of  his  people:  He  shall  see  of 
the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  shall  be  satisfied;  by  his  knowledge 
shall  my  righteous  servant  justify  many;  for  He  shall  bear  their 
iniquities;  when  thou  shalt  make  his  soul  (or,  when  his  soul 
shall  make)  an  offering  for  sin,  He  shall  see  his  seed,  He  shall 
prolong  his  days,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  Lord  shall  prosper  in 
his  hand.  Thus  spake  prophets  of  the  coming  Redeemer.  They 
described  Him  in  terms  taken  from  the  sacrifices  appointed  under 
the  law.  They  described  Him  as  they  would  have  described  a 
victim  offered  upon  the  altar — only  making  the  victim  a  mighty 
Saviour  instead  of  an  animal  without  blemish — only  speaking 
of  the  substitution,  the  innocence,  and  the  expiation  as  real,  and 
not  as  merely  symbolical  or  typical. 

§  4.  The  New  Testament  Descriptions  of  the  Sufferings  and 
Death  of  Christ  repeat  the  same  Ideas,  give  us  in  more  strict  Form 
of  Assertion  the  same  Elements. 

We  have  seen  what  were  the  religious  ideas  prevailing 
throughout  the  world  at  the  time  that  the  Redeemer  came — 
ideas  in  which  Gentile  as  well  as  Jew  participated.  Every- 
where men  believed  in  the  necessity  and  efficacy  of  sacrifices. 
Such  was  the  preparation  which  God,  in  his  providential  govern- 
ment of  the  heathen  nations,  and  in  his  special  revelation  to  his 
chosen  people,  had  made  for  the  reception  of  his  Son,  when  He 
should  be  sent  in  the  fulness  of  times  to  gather  together  all  things 
in  one,  and  to  draw  all  men  unto  himself.  The  sense  of  sin,  the 
need  of  deliverance,  the  belief  in  a  deliverance  only  through 
propitiatory  sacrifices — these  are  the  deepest  religious  feelings 
which  we  find  impressed  upon  the  whole  ancient  world — in 
these  men  all  agreed.  Every  altar  proclaimed  them,  every  vic- 
tim renewed  them.  Daily  as  were  the  sacrifices,  so,  every  day 
these  ideas  were  brought  before  men's  minds,  in  the  blood  of 
dying  victims,  in  the  agonies  of  departing  life. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  449 

A  strange  preparation  this,  for  an  economy  which  was  to  dc 
away  with  and  deny  all  these  things,  for  a  dispensation  which, 
as  some  suppose,  not  only  overturned  the  altars,  but  destroyed 
all  the  ideas  connected  with  them.  Whether  it  was  so  or  not, 
remains  to  be  considered.  Whether  the  essential  elements  of  the 
ancient  religion  were  abrogated  or  confirmed  in  the  religion 
which  was  to  supersede  all  other  forms  of  faith,  we  are  now  to 
inquire. 

Did  Christianity  abolish,  or  did  it  confirm,  the  sentiments  we 
have  found  existing  as  to  the  mode  in  which  a  fallen  world 
could  become  reconciled  to  its  God  ?  Did  it  destroy  the  law  and 
the  prophets,  or  did  it  fulfil  them  V  Did  it  take  up  the  religious 
sentiments  of  the  race  and  purify  them,  or  did  it  introduce  en- 
tirely new  conceptions  as  to  the  way  in  which  man  was  to  be 
justified  before  God?  Did  it  go  to  a  Jew  and  say,  All  the  ideas 
you  have  had  as  to  the  way  of  pardon  must  be  entirely  erased 
from  your  mind,  and  you  must  accept  a  scheme  which  in  its 
essential  features  is  wholly  different  from  that  which  God  gave 
your  fathers  by  the  prophets, — or  did  it  present  him  with  the 
perfect  realization  of  what  was  at  best  but  imperfectly  exhibited 
in  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  law  and  the  rites  of  the  altar  ?  Did 
it  go  to  the  heathen,  and  while  it  bade  him  quit  his  false  gods 
and  atrocious  rites,  also  preach  to  him  that  he  was  to  look  for 
no  sacrifice  and  quit  all  hope  of  a  proper  expiation,  that  he  need 
do  nothing  but  amend  his  life  and  trust  in  a  mercy  which  ac- 
cepted him  without  a  propitiation  ?  Did  it,  in  presenting  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  way  and  the  truth  and  the  life,  and  his  sufferings 
and  death  as  the  ground  of  acceptance,  carefully  abstain  from 
all  expressions  which  would  recall  the  long-cherished  views, 
both  of  heathen  and  Jew,  as  to  the  eflficacy  of  sacrifices,-— or 
did- it  describe  Christ  and  his  death  in  such  a  way  as  involved 
all  the  elements  which  they  believed  to  belong  to  a  vicarious 
expiation  ?  Did  it  alter  in  any  essential  particulars  the  views 
universally  prevailing  as  to  the  nature  of  a  sacrifice,  on  the 
ground  of  which  deity  was  to  be  made  propitious, — or  did  it 
describe  the  superiority  of  Christ's  sacrifice  as  consisting  pre- 
cisely in  this,  that  it  perfectly  realized  all  that  it  was  believed  a 


450  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

sacrifice  must  be  and  could  effect,  and  that,  therefore,  all  othei 
sacrifices  were  vain  and  worthless  ? 

To  state  the  case,  to  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  mode  in 
which  the  New  Testament  speaks  of  Christ,  is  almost  to  prove 
it.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration,  when  a  distinguished  apolo- 
gist for  Christianity1  asserts — "that  Christ  suffered  and  died  as 
an  atonement  for  the  sins  of  the  world  is  a  doctrine  so  constantly 
infused  through  the  New  Testament  that  whoever  will  seriously 
peruse  these  writings  and  deny  that  it  is  there,  may  with  as 
much  reason  and  truth,  after  reading  the  works  of  Thucydides 
and  Livy,  assert  that  in  them  no  mention  is  made  of  any  facts 
in  relation  to  the  history  of  Greece  and  Rome." 

Are  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  then,  represented  as 
endured  in  the  place  of  others,  as  a  substitution,  as  vicarious? 
— What  else  can  our  Saviour  mean  when  He  says  that  He  gave 
his  life  a  ransom  for  many,2  and  that  He  lays  down  his  life  for 
the  sheep3?  What  does  Paul  mean  when  he  writes  to  the  Gal- 
atians,4  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being 
made  a  curse  for  us  ?  Why  does  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  de- 
clare that  Christ  was  once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many  ? 5 
Why  does  Peter  preach  Christ  as  the  one  who  his  own  self  bare 
our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree,6  and  also  declare  that 
Christ  suffered  for  sins  once,  the  just  for  the  unjust  ? 7  (The  words 
used,  for,  instead  of,  bearing  the  sin  of  others,  and  the  like,  ex- 
press substitution,  if  any  words  can  do  it ;  and  the  variety  of 
phrases,  all  of  which  concur  in  the  same  vicarious  significance, 
forbids  us  to  suppose  it  was  accidental.  Had  there  been  only 
one  word  or  form  of  expression  for  it,  it  were  easier  to  interpret 
it  otherwise:  but  the  variety  of  the  forms  of  expression  forbids 
such  a  violence.)  Why  are  these  and  similar  declarations  re- 
specting Christ's  sufferings  constantly  introduced  by  the  Apos- 
tles, when  they  addressed  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  if  they  did  not 
mean  to  teach  them  the  necessity  and  efficacy  of  vicarious 
sufferings?  If  on  this  point  their  previous  views  had  beou 

1  Soame  Jenyns.  2  Matt  xx.  28.  3  John  x.  15. 

<  Gal.  iii.  13.  *  Heb.  ix.  28.  *  1  Pet.  ii.  24 

•  1  Pet.  iii.  18. 


THE    REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  451 

erroneous,  would  such  descriptions  of  the  death  of  Christ  have 
ai:y  other  effect  than  to  confirm  them  in  their  error  ? 

The  second  element  in  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice  is,  the  innocence 
of  the  victim:  it  must  be  the  fairest  of  the  herd,  the  gentlest  of 
the  flock.  We  are  told  that  such  an  High  Priest  became  us, 
who  is  holy,  harmless,  undefiled.1  The  Apostle  Peter  speaks  of 
Him  as  a  lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot.2  And  Paul 
concurs  in  this,  when  He  asserts  that  God  hath  made  Him  to 
be  sin  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin.3  The  attribute  of  blamelessness, 
which  the  sacrifice  must  have,  was  perfectly  realized  only  in 
the  Lamb  of  God.  His  alone  was  moral  guiltlessness;  and  this 
was  one  reason  why  his  alone  was  the  acceptable  sacrifice.  An 
animal  could  only  symbolize  or  typify;  it  could  not  possess  that 
moral  purity  which  was  necessary  in  order  that  the  sacrifice 
might  be  available  and  acceptable,  might  be  a  true  expiation. 
And  this  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  Christ, 
and  that  alone,  realized  the  full  import  of  the  word  and  the 
thing. 

These  vicarious  sufferings  of  an  innocent  victim  were  de- 
signed to  make  expiation  for  sin — to  make  God  propitious,  and 
as  a  consequence  to  free  man  from  the  overburdening  sense  of 
guilt  and  fear  of  punishment:  for  both  these  particulars  are 
involved  in  a  real  propitiation.  And  in  this,  in  which  resides 
the  very  vitality  of  a  sacrifice,  Christ's  alone  fulfilled  the  office. 
While  it  was  ever  held  as  essential  to  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice, 
yet  it  was  never  realized,  whether  on  Pagan  or  Jewish  altars. 
It  was  symbolized  by  the  one,  and  both  symbolized  and  typified 
by  the  other.  With  Christ  came  the  reality,  and  this  is  what 
chiefly  makes  his  to  be  the  only,  the  real,  the  proper  sacrifice, 
beside  which  none  other  may  be  named.  Of  all  the  offerings 
ever  made  his  alone  was  accepted;  others  were  available  only  as 
they  spake  of  his.  All  others  neither  purchased  the  favor  of 
God,  nor  brought  true  peace  to  man :  Christ's  did  both,  and  was 
therefore  an  expiation  for  sin,  in  the  only  legitimate,  and  the 
most  perfect  sense  of  the  words.  The  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and 
that  alone,  satisfied  God,  and  brought  peace  to  the  conscience, 
'  Heb.  vii.  26.  2  1  Pet.  i.  19.  s  1  Cor.  v.  21. 


452  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

— Testimony  on  these  points  crowds  upon  us — text  after  text, 
evangelists  and  apostles,  eager  to  be  heard,  while  they  speak  in 
exulting  faith  of  Him,  who  hath  washed  us  from  our  sins  in  hia 
own  blood;1  in  whom  we  have  redemption  through  his  blood, 
the  forgiveness  of  sins;2  whose  blood  cleanseth  from  all  sin;8 
through  whom  God  declares  his  righteousness  in  the  passing 
over  of  sins;4  in  whom  God  was,  reconciling  the  world  unto 
himself.5  The  whole  testimony  is  summed  up  in  a  wonderful 
passage,  which  connects  the  old  and  new  economy,  giving  the 
chkif  defect  of  the  old  and  superiority  of  the  new,  and  which 
contains  all  the  elements  of  a  sacrifice  and  the  whole  virtue  of 
an  argument:  For  if  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats,  and  the  ashes 
of  a  heifer,  sprinkling  the  unclean,  sanctifieth  to  the  purifying 
of  the  flesh;  how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ,  who 
through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  without  spot  to  God, 
purge  your  conscience  from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God?6 
The  conclusion  to  which  we  are  irresistibly  led  from  such 
passages  as  those  we  have  cited — and  the  number  of  them  might 
be  greatly  multiplied — can  be  nothing  less  than  this:  that  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus  are  represented  as  containing  all 
the  elements  of  a  sacrifice  for  sin,  and  are  so  spoken  of  in  writ- 
ings addressed  to  people  who  had  always  believed  in  the  neces- 
sity and  efficacy  of  sacrifice;  and,  consequently,  that  we  must 
either  give  up  in  despair  the  chief  canon  for  interpreting  lan- 
guage aright,  i.  e.,  the  sense  it  would  naturally  carry  to  those 
to  whom  it  was  addressed,  or  we  must  admit  that  the  Apostles 
meant  to  teach  an  expiation  for  sin,  in  the  boldest  sense  of  the 
words.  To  this  dilemma  we  are  reduced:  either  we  cannot  find 
out  the  meaning  of  Scripture,  or  it  means  to  teach  expiation ;  and 
consequently,  either  we  believe  it  and  receive  the  atonement,  or, 
if  we  reject  the  atonement,  we  reject  inspiration  also.  Archbishop 
Magee  says:7  if  The  atonement  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  was 
more  strictly  vicarious  than  that  by  the  Mosaic  sacrifices  where- 
by it  was  typified."  And  the  substance  of  this  remark  may  bs 

»  Rev.  i.  5.  8  Eph.  i.  7.  3  1  John  i.  7. 

<  Bom.  iii.  25.  6  2  Cor.  v.  19.  «  Heb.  ix.  13,  14. 

i  On  the  Atonement.    No.  LXXIII. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  453 

still  further  applied.  All  the  elements  which  enter  into  the  very 
nature  of  a  sacrifice  are  represented  as  more  fully  exhibited  in 
the  death  and  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ,  than  they  are  found  any 
where  else.  Instead  of  these  elements  being  any  of  them  weak- 
ened, they  are  all  confirmed  in  strength  and  emphasis,  when  ap- 
plied to  the  death  of  Jesus.  The  vicarious  suffering  was  more 
strictly  vicarious,-— it  was  a  more  real  substitution;  the  substitu- 
tion of  one  moral  being  for  another;  the  innocence  of  the  sacri- 
fice is  in  Him  alone  perfectly  realized, — all  others  were  at  the 
best  only  physically  blameless,  He  alone  was  morally  pure;  and 
as  to  the  propitiation  which  was  intended  to  be  effected  by  means 
of  a  vicarious  death,  his  alone  effects  that  propitiation,  his  alone 
gives  boldness  of  access  to  the  very  throne  of  the  Eternal.  We 
say,  then,  still  further,  that  not  only  are  we  obliged  to  admit  that 
Christ's  death  is  a  proper  sacrifice,  but  that  we  are  forced  to  con- 
fess that  his  is  the  only  proper  sacrifice,  and  that  if  no  other  had 
ever  been  known,  if  men  had  never  heard  of  the  propitiatory  suf- 
ferings of  the  innocent  for  the  guilty,  yet  they  would  have  been 
obliged,  if  they  received  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament, 
to  concede  that  it  was  there  found  and  most  distinctly  expressed. 
If  the  points  enumerated  do  indeed  constitute  the  elements  of  a 
real  sacrifice,  then  does  Christ's  death,  and  that  alone,  correspond 
thereto.  Not  only  may  it  be  so  interpreted,  but  it  must  be  so 
interpreted;  not  only  does  history  lead  us  so  to  view  it,  but  with- 
out history,  though  we  knew  of  no  heathen  rites,  though  we  had 
read  of  no  Jewish  altar,  we  must  still  confess  that  the  sufferings 
and  death  of  the  Son  of  God  were  endured  instead  of  ours;  were 
endured  by  One  wholly  spotless ;  and  were  of  such  virtue  that 
they  purchased  the  remission  of  sins  and  purged  the  unclean 
conscience,1 

§  5.   Consideration  of  Objections. 

Obj.  I. — Why  may  we  not  interpret  all  that  is  said  about  the 
gucrifice  of  Christ  just  as  we  should  interpret  the  language  when 

1  "And  this  I  am  sure,"  sajrs  Dr.  South,  "  is  spoke  so  plain  and  loud  by  the 
universal  voice  of  the  whole  Book  of  God,  that  Scripture  must  be  crucified  as  well 
as  Ohrist,  to  give  any  other  tolerable  sense  of  it" 


454  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

it  is  said  that  one  man  suffers  for  another,  a  mother  for  a  child, 
a  patriot  for  his  country  and  such  like — where  all  that  we  mean 
is,  that  by  the  suffering  some  outward  good  was  attained,, or 
some  evil  averted — some  peril  warded  off?  This  would  make 
the  doctrine  more  intelligible,  level  to  our  present  associations, 
analogous  to  what  is  daily  seen  in  God's  providence. 

But  what  special  temporal  good  ivas  purchased  by  Christ 
for  his  followers:  what  special  temporal  evil  did  his  death  avert 
from  them  ?  None — absolutely  none.  Such  an  explanation, 
instead  of  making  the  Scriptural  representations  intelligible, 
makes  them  wholly  unintelligible.  The  good  He  purchased 
was  a  spiritual  good,  a  freedom  from  the  condemnation  for  sin 
and  the  sense  of  guilt.  Outward  good  might  follow  the  inward; 
but  the  inward  was  first.  The  good  He  purchased  for  us  had 
relation  to  human  sin,  and  not  chiefly  to  the  evils  which  beset 
humanity.  He  was  a  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for 
ours  only  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  One  man 
may  die  for  another  man:  but  how  can  the  death  of  the  one 
procure  from  God  the  pardon  of  the  sins  of  the  other  ?  Here 
the  analogy  utterly  fails. 

And  besides,  this  sense  of  sacrifice  so  current  amongst  us,  is 
a  derived  sense,  and  not  the  direct  Scriptural  sense, — is  one 
which  has  respect  to  human  relations  and  not  to  the  relations 
of  man  to  God.  Had  the  Apostles  designed  to  convey  this 
meaning  clearly,  the  Greek  language  offered  them  abundant 
facilities,  without  their  resorting  to  terms  taken  from  the  altar 
and  its  victims.  If  we  would  faithfully  interpret  the  New  Tes- 
tament according  to  the  sense  of  the  times  in  which  it  was 
written — times,  be  it  well  remembered,  in  which  not  only  animal 
but  human  sacrifices  were  offered  in  almost  every  nation — there 
remains  but  the  choice  between  these  two  things:  that  when 
the  Apostles  represented  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  proper 
sacrifice,  they  would  either  be  understood  as  meaning  to  assert 
that  He  was  a  human  sacrifice,  and  thus  have  perpetuated  in 
their  teachings  that  direct  abomination  of  heathenism;  or  else, 
<,hat  they  ascribed  to  the  death  of  Jesus  such  efficacy  as  no 
•leath  of  a  mere  man  could  ever  possess.  To  interpret  the  Ian* 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  455 

guage  in  the  way  in  which  we  now  speak  of  one  man's  being  a 
sacrifice  for  another,  is  forbidden  by  the  whole  spirit  of  antiquity. 
To  interpret  it  as  meaning  a  proper  sacrifice,  makes  it  either  to  be 
a  human  sacrifice — the  most  atrocious  of  abominations, — or  forces 
us  to  attribute  to  it  some  peculiar  value  in  consequence  of  the 
dignity  and  relations  of  the  sufferer. 

Obj.  II. — Another  mode  in  which  this  doctrine  is  sometimes 
drawn  down  from  its  high  elevation,  and  left  in  an  indefinite 
vagueness,  is  by  saying:  it  is  enough  for  any  man  to  believe  in 
the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  to  trust  to  that,  and  leave  all 
theories  about  expiation  and  propitiation  to  the  care  of  dispu- 
tants. Christ  suffered  and  died,  and  for  us:  so  much  is  plain; 
here  we  can  all  unite.  This  is  plain  fact,  revealed  fact,  but 
theories  about  the  atonement  are  not  so  plain. 

The  sense  of  this  is,  that  the  position  that  Christ's  death  was 
expiatory  is  a  theory,  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  fact, 
and  that  all  we  need  to  believe  in  is  the  fact  that  his  death  was 
for  us.  But  if  the  investigation  we  have  instituted  be  of  any 
worth,  if  it  have  taught  us  one  thing  more  than  another,  it  is 
this:  that  the  very  nature  and  essence  of  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Christ  is,  that  they  are  an  expiation  for  sin.  This  is 
the  very  idea  of  a  sacrifice.  It  is  its  exhaustive  definition :  it 
is  the  thing  itself,  and  not  a  deduction  or  inference  from  it. 
This  is  the  fact  and  not  a  theory  about  it.  If  one  does  not 
believe  'in  the  expiation,  he  does  not  believe  in  the  sacrifice. 
We  have  the  shell  and  not  the  kernel;  we  have  death  and 
sufferings  and  not  life  and  peace.  The  expiation  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  death  without  destroying  the  life  that  is  in 
the  death.  We  may  form  theories  about  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus, 
in  its  relations  to  the  moral  government  of  the  world,  or  to  the 
wants  of  the  human  soul:  but  the  very  essence  of  the  thing 
about  which  we  are  to  form  our  theory  is  that  it  was  an  ex- 
piation for  sin.  And  to  represent  this  as  a  theory  instead  of 
being  the  fact,  is  to  confound  the  whole  relation  between  theory 
and  fact.  To  require  us  to  believe  in  the  necessity  of  the  death 
of  an  Incarnate  God  for  our  redemption,  without  making  that 


456  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

death  to  be  a  propitiation  for  our  sins,  is  to  require  us  to  believe 
in  the  most  startling  of  facts,  and  to  close  our  eyes  to  any  rea- 
son or  availability  of  it,  is  not  only  to  demand  an  historical  faith, 
but  a  faith  for  which  no  sufficient  reason  can  be  assigned — in  a 
fact  at  once  monstrous  and  enigmatical. 

Obj.  111. — It  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  see  how  one 
being  can  bear  the  penalty  which  others  have  deserved,  how 
Christ's  vicarious  sufferings  could  procure  for  us  exemption  from 
condemnation. — We  suppose  that  those  who  press  this  objection 
will  desire  to  use  care  in  presenting  it,  so  as  not  to  cut  off  all 
hope  or  possibility  of  salvation  from  every  son  and  daughter  of 
Adam.  If  every  soul  must  bear  its  own  sins  and  penalty,  and 
if  it  be  a  true  saying  that  the  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall  die,  and 
if  conscience  alone  is  to  decide  the  case,  we  see  not  but  that 
conscience  demands  that  the  penalty  should  be  carried  into  full 
execution. — We  also  suppose  that  care  will  be  used  not  to  make 
the  objection  so  positive  as  to  conflict  with  the  ordinary  provi- 
dential dealings  of  God,  where  a  kind  of  substitution  is  to  be 
seen.  It  is  hard  to  contest  the  facts,  that  the  father  does  suffer 
for  the  son  arid  the  son  for  the  father,  and  one  generation  of 
men  for  those  that  come  after.  Almost  all  the  civil  arid  re- 
ligious rights  we  enjoy  have  been  purchased  by  the  blood  of 
others.  Sins  are  visited  upon  children.  It  is  possible  to  carry 
this  individualism  of  sin  and  penalty  so  far  as  to  conflict  with 
the  plainest  facts  in  God's  every  day  government,  and  in  man's 
commonest  relations. 

But  after  all  care  has  been  exercised  in  relation  to  these 
points,  the  objection  cannot  be  conceded  to  be  valid.  If  the 
objection  means,  that  we  cannot  see  how  the  literal  penalty  of 
the  law  can  be  inflicted  on  any  but  its  transgressor, — this  is 
doubtless  true:  but  the  doctrine  of  a  sacrifice  for  sin  does  not 
involve  this  necessarily :  it  says  only,  that  the  sufferings  and  death 
of  Christ  were  instead  of  this  penalty.  Of  course  the  objection 
does  not  mean  that  there  can  never  be  any  vicariousness  of 
suffering:  for  this  would  run  counter  to  plain  facts  in  the  ordi- 
nary providence  of  God,  If  it  is  meant,  however*  that  we  can 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  457 

not  see  just  how  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  are  the  pro- 
curing cause  of  the  pardon  of  our  sin,  then  we  say,  that  it  is  not 
necessary  that  this  should  be  seen  in  order  to  a  living  faith  in 
Christ  as  our  Redeemer.  We  do  not  believe  in  a  bare  abstract 
plan  of  atonement,  which  we  can  see  through  and  round:  we 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  our  High  Priest,  our  Sacrifice.  And  in 
his  sacrifice  there  is  doubtless  a  mystery,  unfathomaUe  to  mortal 
penetration. 

Then  in  respect  to  this  objection,  we  say: 

1.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  theology,  mystery  is  to  be  admitted, 
while  facts  are  to  be  accepted  on  their  proper  evidence;  and  the 
suitableness  of  the  facts  to  illustrate  the  glory  of  God  and  to 
meet  the  wants  of  men  is  to  be  fully  recognized.     Mystery  in- 
vests all  reality.     It  is  no  objection  to  a  divine  proceeding,  a 
divine  provision,  that  while  it  comes  largely  within  our  appre- 
hension, it  also  goes  largely  beyond.     If  there  were  no  mystery 
here,  we  might  suspect  that  there  was  no  divine   reality.     It 
would  be  an  objection  to  the  atonement  if  there  were  no  objec- 
tions to  it. 

2.  On  the  ground  of  uniform  Christian  experience   we  are 
warranted  in  asserting,  that  it  is  a  fact  of  man's  spiritual  history, 
as  abundantly  confirmed  as  any  fact  can  be,  that  faith  in  the 
atoning  death  of  Christ  is  the  constant  and  only  source  of  the 
glad  feeling  of  reconciliation  with  God ;  that  this  is  the  procur- 
ing cause  of  the  feeling  of  redemption  from  the  penalty  and 
power  of  sin,  as  much  as  sin  is  the  procuring  cause  of  guilt,  as 
much  as  right  is  the  source  of  the  sense  of  obligation.     If  this 
be  a  fact  verified  by  constant  experience,  then  as  a  fact  it  stands, 
whether  we»can  penetrate  to  all  its  grounds  and  reasons  or  not. 

3.  But  further,  this  objection  runs  counter,  not  only  to  the 
religious  experience  of  Christians,  but  to  the  religious  convic- 
tions of  the  human  race.     The  assertion  that  there  can  be  no 
vicarious  sacrifice  for  sin  attacks  the  religious  faith  of  entire 
humanity.     It  is  not  modern  orthodoxy  alone  that  is  thus  at- 
tacked,— the  uniform  consent  of  the  church  of  Christ  is  assaulted; 
it  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  church  alone  that  is  assailed, — it  is 
the  whole  tenor  of  the  New  Testament:  it  is  not  the  New  Testa- 


458  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ment  only, — it  is  the  whole  sacrificial  system  and  the  great  pro- 
phetic burden  of  the  Old  Testament;  it  is  not  only  the  old 
dispensation  and  the  new  which  is  undermined, — it  is  the 
belief  of  every  nation,  where  forms  of  worship  have  existed. 
If  we  can  prove  anything  from  what  has  always,  everywhere, 
and  by  all  been  received,  we  can  certainly  prove  the  necessity 
of  a  sacrifice  for  sin.  The  heathen  altar,  the  Jewish  law,  the 
Christian  cross  equally  proclaim  it.  It  has  in  respect  to  the  uni- 
versality of  belief  an  evidence  for  itself  far  above  any  that  can 
be  alleged  to  exist  for  any  one  of  the  articles  of  the  so-called 
system  of  Natural  Religion.  How  dim  the  anticipations  of  im- 
mortality among  the  heathen  ! — how  floating  their  notion  of  a 
divine  unity! — how  constant  their  victims  on  the  altar! — how 
plain  their  faith  in  substitution ! 

4.  While  admitting  that  the  objection  is  made  to  that  re- 
lation of  the  atonement  which  is  veiled  in  mystery,  we  assert 
that  we  can  see,  nevertheless,  the  fitness  of  such  a  mode  of 
reconciliation  as  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  on  the  one  hand  to 
God's  character  and  government,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  the 
wants  of  men. 

(a.)  The  expiatory  sufferings  of  Christ  are  on  the  one  hand 
conformable  to  what  we  know  of  God's  character  and  govern- 
ment, as  a  provision  for  the  pardon  of  the  sins  of  his  creatures. 
They  are  thus  fitted  because  they  make  the  most  perfect  display 
of  the  moral  attributes  of  God,  showing  us  his  love  as  it  is  no- 
where else  exhibited,  and  his  justice  in  its  unchangeable  per- 
fecti-on.  The  atonement  shows  how  his  justice  can  be  immutable, 
and  yet  grace  abound.  It  shows  how  the  apparently  conflict- 
ing claims  of  God's  justice  and  love  can  both  be  met,  and  the 
being  who  is  the  object  of  a  just  condemnation  can  become  the 
subject  of  a  redeeming  love.  Nowhere  else  are  these  attributes 
so  perfectly  manifested  as  in  the  work  of  our  Saviour.  This 
alone  gives  it  a  surpassing  glory,  and  would  be  sufficient  to 
vindicate  it  from  every  objection.  How  can  the  love  of  God  oe 
bestowed  in  its  fulness  upon  any  creature,  in  respect  to  whom 
his  justice  speaks  only  of  condemnation?  The  justice  of  God 
must  be  satisfied,  else  his  love  cannot  be  imparted.  Such  satis> 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  459 

(action  the  atonement  of  Jesus  bestows.  As  the  representatives 
of  the  race  He  kept  the  law,  He  suffered  in  our  stead  its  ex- 
tremest  penalties — not  the  same  in  kind,  as,  e.  g.f  remorse  and 
eternal  death — but  all  those  which  a  substituted  sinless  being 
could  suffer:  his  infinite  nature  qualified  Him  to  stand  for  the 
race,  and  made  his  sufferings  available.  And  all  that  are  united 
•with  Him  by  faith  receive  the  benefits  of  his  sacrifice:  God  looks 
upon  Him  who  is  their  shield,  and  remembers  the  face  of  his 
anointed,  and  for  his  sake  spares  and  adopts  them.  His  justice 
is  here  exhibited,  satisfaction  is  made,  the  sinner  is  pardoned, 
and  the  glory  of  the  redemption  is  shared  by  Him  who  through 
love  gave  his  Son  to  die  for  us,  and  by  the  Son  who  purchased 
us  with  his  own  most  precious  blood.  This  satisfaction  to  the 
divine  justice  is  involved  in  the  work  of  atonement,  and  is  nec- 
essary ;  yet  it  should  ever  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the 
work  itself.  The  work  consists  in  the  expiatory  sufferings  of 
Jesus,  and  it  is  these  which  do  satisfy  the  divine  justice,  though 
it  is  sometimes  represented  otherwise,  as  though  the  atonement 
itself  consisted  in  such  a  satisfaction. — Not  only  are  God's  attri- 
butes thus  more  perfectly  and  harmoniously  displayed:  his 
moral  government  also  is  upheld,  his  authority  as  a  lawgiver  is 
fully  maintained  by  it.  And  here  again  we  say  that  the  main- 
tenance of  this  authority  does  not  constitute  the  substance  or 
matter  of  the  atonement:  but  rather,  that  the  atonement  has 
this  for  one  of  its  effects,  for  one  of  its  relations — an  important 
and  necessary  relation — but  still  not  itself  the  chief  end  or  ulti- 
mate purpose  of  the  atonement.  That  chief  end  is,  the  salvation 
of  the  sinner.  The  sinner  must  be  saved,  if  at  all,  in  such  a 
way  as  is  consistent  with  the  moral  government  of  God, — as  will 
uphold  the  authority  of  the  law:  but  still  the  virtue  of  the  sav- 
ing act  will  consist,  not  in  the  upholding  of  the  law,  but  in  the 
expiatory  sufferings  by  which  the  ransom  is  effected.  Beyond 
and  above  all  analogies  drawn  from  the  relations  of  men,  and 
the  maintaining  of  a  human  law,  are  the  awful  expiatory  suffer- 
ings of  our  Great  High  Priest.  Not  the  son  of  a  king  suffering 
instead  of  rebels,  not  a  royal  father,  having  the  light  of  one  of 
his  own  eyes  extinguished,  that  one  of  his  son's  eyes  might  be 


460  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

left  unhurt,  can  fully  illustrate  the  relation  of  our  Redeemer's 
sufferings  to  the  inviolability  of  God's  law.  The  force  and  im« 
pressiveness,  and  we  may  add,  the  logical  accuracy  of  the  whole 
representation  is  rather  weakened  than  strengthened  by  resort 
to  such  imperfect  analogies.  We  should  rather  lay  the  stress 
upon  the  fact  that  Christ  by  his  very  nature,  by  his  natural  re- 
lations to  God  and  his  assumed  relations  to  humanity  was  fitted 
to  be  the  Mediator,  to  fulfil  the  whole  law  and  make  it  honorable, 
and  thus  to  maintain  its  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  the  universe. 

(b.)  This  atoning  work  of  Christ,  on  the  other  hand,  is  no  less 
fitted  to  man's  nature  and  wants,  than  it  is  to  God's  character. 
To  represent  the  atonement  as  designed  only  to  affect  man,  and 
not — so  to  speak — to  influence  the  divine  mind,  to  describe  it  as 
a  moral  spectacle,  exhibited  chiefly  to  enlist  and  arouse  the  feel- 
ings of  man,  his  sense  of  sin,  and  his  need  of  redemption — is  as- 
ouredly  unscriptural  and  defective:  yet  that  it  has  this  effect  is 
scriptural  and  undeniable.  It  represents  to  man  the  justice  of 
God  in  the  clearest  light,  and  this  meets  his  own  sense  of  jus- 
tice ;  and  the  love  of  God  in  its  highest  form,  and  this  is  fitted 
to  awaken  a  responsive  affection.  It  is  adapted  to  his  con- 
science, so  far  as  it  upholds  the  law,  and  to  all  his  deeper,  ten- 
derer feelings,  since  nothing  appeals  to  them  so  strongly. 

In  sum,  then,  we  say,  with  reference  to  Objection  III.,  viz., 
how  can  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  procure  the  pardon  of  sin — what 
is  the  rationale,  what  are  the  ultimate  grounds  of  the  system 
which  centers  here:  that  there  is  room  for  a  variety  of  explana- 
tions, and  here  is  where  the  theories  of  the  atonement  come  in.  But 
we  should  be  careful  to  draw  the  line  between  the  facts  and  the 
theories.  We  have  endeavored  to  bring  out  the  great  revealed, 
Scriptural  fact  about  Christ  and  his  sacrifice,  in  its  simplicity 
and  in  its  integrity.  That  fact  we  suppose  to  be  embraced  in 
the  statement,  that  the  doath  of  Christ  was  a  proper  sacrifice  for 
cur  sins.  We  suppose  that  this  is  revealed  in  so  distinct  a  man- 
ner that  it  is  a  part  of  the  facts  of  the  Gospel.  When  we  say 
that  the  death  of  Christ  was  instead  of  our  punishment,  and  that 
it  made  expiation  for  our  sins,  we  are  not  stating  theories,  but 
revealed  facts.  We  suppose  that  in  this  fact  is  contained  an 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  461 

answer  to  the  question,  how  can  a  sinner  be  pardoned,  and  that 
answer  is,  by  faith  in  Christ  as  the  sacrifice  for  our  sins:  by  a 
belief  in  his  sufferings  and  death,  instead  of  ours.  We  do  not 
suppose  that  anything  which  can  properly  be  called  a  theory  is 
involved  in  any  one  of  the  points  that  we  have  presented  in  re- 
spect to  the  doctrine  of  sacrifices.  Theories  of  the  atonement 
have  for  their  object  to  show  how  this  fact,  viz.,  that  the  expia- 
tory death  of  Christ  is  the  means  of  pardon  to  the  guilty,  is  to 
be  understood  in  its  entire  relations  to  what  we  know  from  other 
sources  about  the  attributes  and  the  moral  government  of  God, 
and  the  wants  and  needs  of  man.  It  would  be  a  sufficient  an- 
swer to  the  objection  to  show  that  the  fact  is  proved  by  evidence 
which  cannot  be  invalidated;  it  is  a  further  answer,  that  the  atone- 
ment throws  a  light  upon  God's  character  and  government,  and 
meets  the  wants  of  man  as  nothing  else  does:  to  show  precisely 
how  God  construes  this  greatest  and  most  far-reaching  of  trans- 
actions, and  to  give  an  account  of  the  whole  of  its  effect  upon 
the  divine  mind  and  the  divine  government,  is  a  task  which  we 
do  not  undertake. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ANALYSIS   OF   THE    SCRIPTURAL   STATEMENTS   AS   TO    CHRIST'S 
SUFFERINGS    AND    DEATH. 

I. — The  height  of  Christ's  atoning  work,  its  center,  was  in 
his  sufferings  and  death.  These  are  the  matter  of  the  atonement. 

Isa.  liii.  Death:  Heb.  ii.  9,  14;  ix.  15;  Rom.  v.  10;  Phil.  ii.  8; 
Rev.  v.  6,  9,  12.  Cross:  1  Cor.  i.  23;  Gal.  iii.  1 ;  Eph.  ii.  16;  Col.  i. 
20;  Gal.  vi.  14.  Sufferings:  Luke  xxiv.  26;  Acts  iii.  18;  1  Pet.  ii. 
21;  iii.  18;  Matt.  xx.  28.  Blood:  Matt,  xxvi.  28  (Mark  xiv.  24; 
Luke  xxii.  20);  Eph.  ii.  13;  i.  7;  Col  i.  14;  1  John  i.  7;  Rev.  i.  5; 
v.  9. 

II. — Christ  suffered  and  died  for  others. 

Isa.  liii.  5,  6;  Matt.  xxvi.  28;  Rom.  v.  6;  Gal.  iii.  13,  14; 
2  Cor.  v.  14,  15. 


462  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

III. — Christ  died  for  gin  and  sinners. 

Isa.  liii.  6,  8;  John  i.  29;  Rom.  iii.  25;  v.  8;  vi.  10;  viii.  3; 
1  Cor.  xv.  3;  2  Cor.  v.  21;  Gal.  iii.  13;  Heb.  ix.  28;  1  Pet.  ii.  24; 
iii.  18;  Rev.  i.  5. 

IV. — As  to  the  necessity  of  such  a  sacrifice. 

Luke  xxiv.  26;  Gal  ii.  21;  iii.  21;  Heb.  ii.  10. 

V. — That  in  what  Christ  thus  did  and  suffered,  He  was  a 
sacrifice  for  sins — ivas  really  what  was  symbolized  under  thia 
form  in  the  Old  Testament. 

(a.)  He  was  Priest,  High  Priest:  Heb.  ii.  17;  iii.  1;  iv.  14; 
v.  1,  6,  10;  vii.  11,  15,  26;  viii.  1;  x.  21. 

(b.)  He  was  also  the  pure  offering.  Lamb:  John  i.  29;  1  Pet. 
i.  19;  Rev.  v.  12;  vii.  14;  xiii.  8.  Sacrifice:  1  Cor.  v.  7;  Eph.  v.  2; 
Heb.  ix.  26;  x.  12.  Offering:  Heb.  ix.  14,  25,  28;  x.  10,  14.  Pro- 
pitiation:  Rom.  iii.  25 ;  1  John  ii.  2 ;  iv.  10. 

VI. — That  Christ  is  the  only  sacrifice :  He  alone  makes  an 
atonement  for  sin. 

Rom.  iii.  20-28;  Acts  iv.  12;  Heb.  i.  3;  ix.  28;  x.  10,  12,  14,  26. 

1  Pet.  iii.  18;  Forgiveness  only  through   Him;   Reconciliation 
through  Him  alone ;  Faith  upon  Him  enjoined. 

VII. — That  Christ's  sacrifice  was  voluntary. 

John  x.  17,  18;  Gal.  ii.  20;  Eph.  v.  2;  Heb.  ix.  14;  x.  7-9. 

VIII. — As  to  the  relations  of  his  atonement  to  the  race. 

(a.)  He  died  to  save  his  own  people:  John  x.  11;  xv.  13; 
Rom.  v.  8;  Eph.  v.  25;  Heb.  ii.  13,  14;  1  John  iii.  16. 

(b.)  For  many:  Matt.  xx.  28;  xxvi.  28;  Heb.  ix.  28. 

(c.)  To  save  the  lost:  Mark  ii.  17;  Matt.  ix.  13;  xviii.  11; 
Luke  v.  32;  xix.  10. 

(d.)  For  all,  for  the  world.     John  i.  29;  iii.  16;  vi.  51;  xii.  47; 

2  Cor.  v.  14,  15;  1  Tim.  ii.  6;  Heb.  ii.  9;  1  John  ii.  2. 

IX. — That  what  Christ  did  and  suffered  for  us  was  under  the 
law — in  some  sense,  for  some  object — to  meet  its  claims. 

1.  He  is  represented  as  a  sacrifice:  this  has  no  meaning  un- 
Fees  under  or  in  direct  relation  to  demands  of  law. 

2.  He  is  represented  as  bearing  the  curse  of  the  law:  Gal.  iii 
13.     What  is  the  curse  of  the  law  but  its  penalty  ? 

3.  He  is  represented  as  bearing  sins:  as  bearing  iniquity  and 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  463 

sin:  the  measure  of  these  is  the  law;  if  Christ  bore  sin,  it  could 
only  be  under  the  law:  Isa.  liii.  6,  12;  2  Cor.  v.  21;  Heb.  ix.  28; 
1  Pet.  ii.  24.  It  is  not  enough  to  say,  "  Christ  bore  suffering  in 
consequence  of  sin:"  this  is  not  hermeneutically  just. 

4.  That  Christ's  redeeming  work  was  under  the  law  is  ex- 
pressly asserted  in  Gal.  iv.  4,  5. 

5.  His  obedience  was  a  fulfilling  of  the  law:  Rom.  v.  18,  19; 
x.  4;  Phil.  ii.  8;  Heb.  v.  8;  Matt.  v.  17  (where  it\rjp^6ai.  meana 
not  "  to  complete,"  but  "  to  fulfil "). 

X. — Effect  of  what  Christ  did  in  relation  to  man. 

1.  Generally:  He  came  as  a  Saviour,  Deliverer,  Redeemer: 
Matt.  i.  21;  xviii.  11;  John  iii.  17;  xii.  47;  Acts  iv.  12;  Gal.  iii. 
13;  Tit.  ii.  13;  1  John  iv.  14. 

2.  He  took  away  sin:  Matt.  xxvi.  28;  John  i.  29;  Acts  v.  31; 
xiii.  38;  Col.  i.  14;  Eph.  i.  7;  Heb.  i.  3;  1  John  iii.  5. 

3.  Propitiation  for  sin:  Rom.  iii.  25;  1  John  ii.  2;  iv.  10. 

4.  Cleansing  from  sin :  Eph.  v.  25 ;  Heb.  xiii.  12 ;  1  John  i.  7 ; 
ftev.  vii.  14. 

5.  Reconciliation:  Heb.  ii  17. 

6.  Justification:  Acts  xiii.  39;  Rom.  iii.  24;  v.  9;  Gal.  ii.  17; 
1  Cor.  vi.  11. 

7.  The  source  of  blessings  to  the  universe:  John  xiv.  13; 
Heb.  ix".  15. 

XI. — In  relation  to  God. 

1.  God's  love  is  the  ground :  John  iii.  16. 

2.  God's  purpose — plan — in  it:  John  iii.  17;  Acts  ii.  23;  Rom. 
iii.  25;  viii.  32;  2  Cor.  v.  21;  Heb.  x.  5-9. 

3.  The  righteousness  of  God  in  it:  Rom.  iii.  25;  2  Cor.  v.  21. 

4.  God  gives  Hirn  as  an  offering:  Isa.  liii.  10;  2  Cor.  v.  21. 

5.  Christ  gives  Himself  as  an  offering:  Eph.  v.  2. 

6.  God  reconciles  us  to  himself  through  Christ:  Rom.  v.  11 
(through  whom  we  have  now  received  the  reconciliation);  2 
Cor.  v.  18,  19. 

XII. — Summary  from  this  Scriptural  analysis. 

This  gives  us  the  revealed  facts  as  to  the  nature  and  rela- 
tions of  Christ's  atoning  work — no  theory,  no  hypothesis — only 
an  arrangement  and  array  of  the  chief  Scriptural  assertions. 


464  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

And  it  amounts  to  this,  viz.,  that  in  Christ's  death  as  a  sacrifice 
for  our  sins,  He 

1  Suffered  and  died  for  sin,  in  our  stead,  as  a  proper  sacri 
fice:  that  his  were  the  vicarious,  substituted  sufferings  of  a 
representative; 

2.  — under  the  law,  to  answer  the  ends  of  the  law,  in  some 
way,  in  our  stead; 

3.  — in  order  to  remove  its  curse  from  us ; 

4.  — which  was  done  by  his  substituted  sufferings,  death, 
obedience ; 

5.  — and  which  had  further  the  effect  of  a  propitiation,  de- 
claring God's  righteousness  and  reconciling  man  to  God. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE  THEORY  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

PROPOSITION.  The  different  (imperfect)  theories  of  Christ's 
atoning  work  give  different  aspects  and  relations  of  that  work, 
and  are  true  in  these  aspects,  while  false  in  the  implication  or 
assertion  that  these  give  the  only  or  the  ultimate  point  of  view. 

Classes  of  Theories. 

1.  Those  which  define  the  atonement  ultimately  by  its  in- 
fluence in  bringing  man  into  a  new,  a  regenerate  state. 

2.  Those  which  affirm  that  the  essence  of  the  atonement  con- 
sists in  the  direct  satisfaction  of  distributive  justice. 

3.  The  governmental  theory:  The  atonement  is  a  satisfaction 
of  general  justice — in  the  sense  of  expediency  and  Utilitarian- 
ism— having  respect  to  happiness. 

4  Those  which  affirm  that  it  consists  in  the  satisfaction  of 
general  justice — as  holiness — and  that  it  incidentally  satisfies 
distributive  justice. 

§  1.  Theories  which  define  the  Atonement  ultimately  by  its  In- 
fluence on  Man,  in  bringing  to  a  Neio  Life. 

I. — Christ's  atonement  consists  in  so  setting  forth,  by  exam 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  4()b 

pie  and  instiuctions,  the  purity  and  excellency  of  the  law,  that 
sinners  are  thereby  moved  to  repentance  and  obedience. 

Christ  did  this:  this  was  necessary  to  the  atonement:  a  high 
moral  end  was  answered  by  it.  But  the  atonement  did  not  con- 
sist in  this. 

1.  This  fails  to  account  for  the  emphasis  laid  on  Christ's 
death  and  sufferings. 

2.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  representation  of  his  dying  for 
us,  in  our  stead  and  for  our  sins:  in  short,  with  the  idea  of 
sacrifice. 

3.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  included  idea,  that  forgiveness 
of  sins  is  procured  by  and  through  Christ. 

4.  Christ's  example  and  instruction  are  never  said  to  redeem 
and  save  us:  Christ  himself  saves  us  by  his  atoning  work:  the 
stress  of  Scripture  is  not  on  that,  but  on  this:  Scripture  says  less 
of  his  life  than  of  his  death,  in  this  relation* 

II. — The  theory  that  the  atonement  is  a  symbolical,  outward 
exhibition  of  what  occurs  in  each  man,  in  turning  to  God. 
(Kant,  McLeod  Campbell,  in  part.) 

III. — Christ's  atonement  is  defined  ultimately  with  respect 
to  regeneration,  and  it  consisted  in  this:  by  his  Incarnation,  He 
brought  in  a  new  life — a  divine-humanity — which  is  imparted 
to  believers  in  regeneration.  Suffering  is  incidental,  and  a 
necessary  incident  to,  an  Incarnation  of  a  holy  being  in  a  sinful 
world.  The  world  is  arrayed  against  Him,  and  He  suffers  in 
soul  and  in  body,  because  it  could  not  be  otherwise  with  such 
antagonisms.  So  Coleridge1  and  others  substantially. 

1  Robertson  resolves  the  Atonement  into  a  work  of  love.  This  law  of  life  and 
love  was  adopted  consciously  by  Christ.  Christ  became  voluntarily  submissive 
t  •)  this  law  of  suffering.  What  Christ  suffered  was  the  suffering  inflicted  on  Him 
b  sin  because  He  was  opposing  it.  Bushnell  says,  Christ  by  the  law  of  love  was 
bound  to  do  what  He  did.  Coleridge,  however,  asserts  a  Godward  as  well  as  a  man- 
ward  aspect,  says  that  the  Godward  side  is  the  essence  of  the  Atonement,  but  that 
it  "is  a  spiritual  and  transcendent  mystery  which  passeth  all  understanding." 
Manward,  the  effect  is,  regeneration,  being  born  anew :  Christ  is  a  quickening,  life- 
giving  Spirit:  there  are  four  metaphors  of  this  (compare  Bushnell's  "altar-forms"): 
sin-offering,  reconciliation,  debt,  ransom;  all  of  which  describe  the  effect,  not  the 
nature,  of  the  Atonement.  McLeod  Campbell:  The  Atonement  is  "the  vicarious 
confession  of  sins:"  "To  Christ  alone  Death  had  its  perfect  meaning  as  the 
wages  of  sin — for  in  Him  alone  was  there  full  entrance  into  the  mind  of  God  tow- 
ards  sin."  Rothe  has  a  peculiar  theory. 


466  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

1.  This  theory  is  true  in  respect  to  one  effect  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, viz.,  regeneration. 

2.  It  is  false,  in  denying  the  whole  sacrificial  character  of 
Christ's  mediation. 

3.  It  is  false,  in  making  the  death  and  sufferings  of  Christ 
merely  incidental.     Scripture   makes  these  necessary  and  the 
height  of  his  work. 

4.  It  is  false,  in  making  the  source  of  these  sufferings  to  be 
the  sinfulness  and  rage  of  man:  Scripture  represents  them,  in 
part,  as  from  God. 

5.  The  theory  thus  fails  to  explain  the  Scriptural  positions 
exhibited  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

6.  It  is  not  a  theory  of  the  Atonement,  but  of  regeneration 
as  connected  with  the  Incarnation:  it  resolves  the  proper  woris 
of  the  Spirit  into  the  work  of  Christ;  explains  the  nature  of  that 
work  by  one  of  its  remote  effects — as  if  one  should  explain  the 
sun's  rays  by  the  processes  of  germination  through  heat. 

§  2.  Theories  which  put  the  Essence  of  the  Atonement  in  Satis- 
faction to  Distributive  Justice. 

I. — The  Mercantile  or  Quid  pro  quo  Theory.  The  fundamental 
image  here  is  that  of  a  debt  and  its  satisfaction.  The  theory 
asserts  the  strictest  personal  substitution.  It  embraces  the  fol- 
lowing points: 

1.  Christ  is  the  federal  Head  of  the  elect. 

2.  He  took  their  law-place,  their  place  under  the  law. 

3.  Sometimes  it  is  said  that  He  became  really  and  personally 
a  sinner. 

4.  He  paid  the  debt  of  the  elect,  by  suffering  just  what  dis- 
tributive justice  demanded  of  them. 

•  5.  He  obeyed,  in  the  same  personal,  distributive  sense,  the 
law,  for  the  elect. 

6.  So  that  the  merits  of  his  active  and  passive  obedience  are 
directly  imputed  to  the  elect,  over  whom  the  law  has  no  claima 

Remarks. 

(a.)  Very  few  hold  the  theory  in  this  extreme  form. 

(6.)  It  is  thoroughly  antinomiai?. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  467 

(c.)  It  is  inconsistent  with  proper  pardon  and  grace.  All  is 
legal. 

(d.)  Such  a  substitution  in  the  way  of  strict  distributive  jus- 
tice is  morally  impossible. 

(e.)  Christ  did  not  and  could  not  suffer  the  penalty  as  a  sin 
ner  does,  for  He  was  not  a  sinner,  and  could  not  have  remorse, 
neither  did  He  undergo  eternal  death. 

(/•)  Up°n  tQis  theory,  the  Atonement  is  not  something  sub- 
stituted for  the  deserved  penalty  of  the  individual,  but  simply 
the  suffering  of  that  penalty  by  another.1 

II. — The  modified  satisfaction  theory.  This  is  the  satisfac- 
tion theory  with  its  objectionable  features  removed.  It  reduces 
to  general  statements  what  is  particular  in  the  mercantile  theory 
It  disregards  the  distinction  between  distributive  and  public  jus- 
tice. It  insists,  most  properly,  that  the  atonement  is  a  proceed- 
ing under  the  divine  law:  not  a  device  outside  of  the  law,  to 
exert  moral  influence,  or  uphold  the  authority  of  government. 
It  has  respect  to  law  and  to  the  ethical  nature  of  God,  which  is 
the  source  of  law,  and  so  it  meets  the  needs  of  the  ethical  na- 
ture of  man. 

This  theory  maintains  that  Christ's  satisfaction  was 

1.  Legal:  rendered  to  the  law  and  justice  of  God. 

2.  Complete,  adequate:  it  had  an  intrinsic  value  and  suffi- 
ciency to  the  end,  i.  e.,  to  the  propitiation  of  the  ethical  nature 
of  God,  and  meeting  the  law's  demands. 

3.  That  it  consisted  in  the  perfect  obedience  and  the  suffer- 
ings of  his  whole  life. 

4.  That  it  was  strictly  vicarious  for  us  and  our  redemption 
— was  not  at  any  point  exclusively  for  himself. 

*  Anselm  was  the  chief  advocate  of  the  satisfaction  theory.  He  considered  the 
last  ground  of  the  Atonement  to  be  the  divine  justice  requiring  an  infinite  equiv- 
alent for  the  infinite  guilt  of  sin, — that  there  was  a  necessity  for  it  founded  in  the 
infinite  nature  of  God.  Abelard,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that  the  Atone« 
ment  exhibits  the  free  grace  of  God,  which,  by  kindling  love  in  the  breast  of  man, 
blots  out  sin,  and  with  sin  its  guilt.  Baur,  Versb'hnungsl.  195.  His  view,  as  ex- 
pounded by  Aquinas  in  contrast  with  Duns  Scorus  (Kedemption  not  connected  with 
the  sufferings  of  Christ  ex  insito  valore,  sed  ex  divina  acceptilaiione),  was  main- 
tained bv  the  Keformers,  and  afterwards  the  mercantile  form  of  the  theory  was 
developed. 


468  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

5.  But  the  penalty  of  the  law  cannot  be  met  as  its  preceptive 
demands  can.  What  we  owed  to  the  precept  was  of  debt,  and  it 
makes  no  difference  who  pays  a  debt,  whether  the  debtor  or  some 
one  else, — no  difference  whether  we  obeyed  or  Christ  for  us.  What 
his  obedience  merited,  viewed  as  rendering  what  the  law  demands 
in  respect  to  conformity,  is  paid.  Bat  the  penalty  for  disobedience 
cannot  be  settled  by  anybody.  Distributive  justice  forbids.  The 
demand  is  not  only  for  a  penalty,  but  that  the  guilty  person  shall 
bear  it.  How  then  are  we  to  bring  Christ's  substituted  sufferings 
under  the  strictest  idea  of  distributive  justice,  and  show  that  the 
law  is  satisfied  in  its  demand  for  the  execution  of  the  penalty? 
The  theory  virtually  says,  This  cannot  be  done:  there  must  be  here 
a  relaxation  of  the  law.  The  Sovereign  Lawgiver  can  graciously 
accept  what  He  sees1  to  be  of  equivalent  value  to  the  honor 
of  the  law  and  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  ethical  nature.  Thus 
antinomianism  is  avoided.  As  the  Lawgiver  is  not  bound  to 
accept  the  substitute  for  penalty  as  He  would  be  the  payment 
for  debt,  He  may  prescribe  what  terms  of  acceptance  He  pleases. 
The  claim  of  law  is  not  satisfied  until  the  conditions  on  which 
the  Lawgiver  accepts  substitution  are  complied  with:  hence, 
not  until  faith  and  repentance.  Moreover,  upon  faith  and  re- 
pentance pardon  is  given,  and  the  believer  is  brought  into  a 
justified  state. 

Remark: 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  forms  of  statement  of  the  mercan- 
tile or  extreme  satisfaction  theory  should  be  retained  when  so 
much  of  its  substance  has  been  abandoned.  The  theory  insists 
that  Christ  made  satisfaction  to  the  law  or  justice  of  God,  ful- 
filling in  our  behalf  all  that  the  law  required  in  order  to  accept- 
ance; further,  that  it  is  necessary  to  punish  sin  in  the  person 
of  the  offender;  and  says  that  this  is  the  only  view  of  divine 
justice  which  can  be  heid.  Yet  it  also  adopts  the  statement  that 
penalty  does  not  designate  either  the  nature  or  degree  of  suffer- 
ings, but  the  kind,  and  explains  that  it  is  the  design  of  the  suf- 

1  [He  does  see  the  equivalent  value.  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge,  Outlines  (Eev.  Ed.)» 
414,  gives  a  careful  statement:  Christ  "  suffered  precisely  that  kind  and  degree  and 
duration  of  pain  which  divine  wisdom,  interpreting  divine  justice,  required  in  a 
divine  person  suffering  vicariously  the  penalty  of  human  sin."] 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  469 

ferings — their  relation  to  the  law  of  God — which  makes  them 
penal.  In  this  the  theory  is  right,  but  in  putting  the  matter 
thus,  it  makes  God's  justice  to  be  something  other  than  what  is 
strictly  distributive.  It  brings  into  view  the  ends  of  the  law, 
the  defign  of  the  penalty.  In  securing  that  through  the  sub- 
stituted death  of  Christ,  the  design  of  the  death  denounced  by 
the  law  upon  sinners  shall  be  fully  attained,  God's  essential  jus- 
tice is  satisfied;  but  the  strictest  distributive  justice  is  not  sat- 
isfied, seeing  that  as  regards  that,  "  the  law  is  relaxed."  The 
theory  is  involved  in  a  degree  of  confusion  by  insisting  that 
there  are  only  two  positions  with  regard  to  the  divina  justice, 
that  of  distributive  justice  and  the  governmental  view — which 
is  made  to  have  respect  to  expediency,  to  happiness.  Thus 
it  is  said,  or  implied,  that  the  whole  of  real,  essential  justice  is 
seen  in  distributive  justice. 

§  3.  Theories  which  assert  that  the  Atonement  consists  in  the  Sat- 
isfaction of  General  Justice,  viewing  this  as  having  reference  to 
happiness  or  expediency,  in  maintaining  the  authority  of  the  di- 
vine government. 

The  peculiarity  of  this  class  of  theories  is,  the  assertion  that, 
the  Atonement  meets  certain  exigencies  of  moral  government, 
in  distinction  from  satisfying  law.  Law  is  understood  in  the  in- 
dividual, personal  sense,  exclusively. 

I. — The  atonement  is  designed  to  produce  a  moral  impres- 
sion, not  on  each  individual,  but  on  the  universe, — to  be  a  sub- 
sti-tute  for  punishment, — to  honor,  not  satisfy,  the  law, — to  set 
forth  the  truths  that  God  is  holy  and  must  manifest  his  holi- 
ness,— to  exhibit  his  holiness  and  hatred  of  sin.  In  Grotius,  De 
$atisfactione,  against  Socinus,  the  Atonement  is  viewed  as  de- 
signed to  secure  certain  governmental — not  legal — ends.1  The 
Arminian  position :  The  Atonement  is  designed  to  make  it  consist- 
ent to  offer  salvation  on  easier  terms — terms  of  *'  evangelical 
obedience" — there  is  no  proper  satisfaction. 

This  is  usually,  now,  associated  with  the  expediency  or  happi- 
ness theories  of  ethics.  (See  II.) 

1  Cf.  in  Bib.  Sac.,  April,  '52,  from  Baur.  Grotius  re  tains  orthodox  phraseology 
hut  is  claimed  on  the  Socinian  side  (Bib.  Fr.  Pol.). 


470  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Remarks: 

1.  The  theory  denies:  (a.)  That  satisfaction  is  rendered  to, 
or  made  under,  the  divine  law,  in  any  form  or  way;  (6.)  That  sin 
deserves  punishment.1 

2.  The  theory  fails:  (a.)  To  give  a  legitimate  sense  to  Priest- 
hood,  Sacrifice :  says,  they  are  figurative ;  (b.)  To  show  how  Christ's 
sufferings  and  death  manifest  God's  love  of  holiness  and  hatred 
of  sin;  (c.)  To  give  a  satisfactory  account  of  justification. 

3.  It  is  not  a  theory:  it  is  a  mere  assertion  of  the  facts  of  the 
case,  in  an  unsatisfactory  form. 

II. — The  proper  governmental  theory.2 

"  Justice  ...  is  ...  a  benevolent  disposition  on  his  [God'sj 
part  to  maintain,  by  the  requisite  means,  his  authority  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  the  highest  happiness  of  his  kingdom."8 
"Atoning  justice"  "  involves  a  particular  disposition  to  maintain 
his  authority  by  means  of  an  atonement."4 

Remarks: 

1.  This  rests  on  the  happiness,  expediency  theory  of  morals. 

2.  Gods  authority,  as  the  Moral  Governor,  is  maintained  by 
legal  sanctions:  but  lioio  that  authority  is  maintained  by  an 
Atonement  is  not  shown. 

3.  The  atonement,  upon  this  view,  has  respect  to  others,  but 
not  to  God;  it  is  designed  to  maintain  authority  for  the  good, 
t.  e.,  the  happiness,  of  the  universe. 

§  4.  The  Atonement,  ivJiile  it  indirectly  satisfies  Distributive  Jus- 
tice, does  not  consist  in  this:  it  consists  in  satisfying  the  Demands  of 
Public  Justice,  meaning  by  that  the  divine  holiness  or  the  holi- 
ness of  the  law,  i.  e.,  what  the  divine  holiness  sets  before  itself 
as  the  chief  end  of  the  universe,  or  that  which  is  the  end  of  the 
requirement  of  the  law. 

In  the  statements  which  follow,  it  is  not  proposed  to  give  a 

1  Not  that  it  is  not  intrinsically  odious  and  ill-desert ng,  but  if  governmental 
reasons  do  not  require  its  punishment,  there  is  no  necessity  of  punishing. 

2  I.  e. ,  as  that  term  has  been  employed  in  the  theological  controversies  of  this 
country. 

3  Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor,  Lectures,  ii.  282. 
«  Ib.,  ii.  283. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  471 

complete  theory  of  the  Atonement,  but  to  offer  some  hints  which 
may  show  what  the  extreme  theories  are,  and  which  may  sug- 
gest some  points  of  agreement. 

I. — Moral  Government  arid  Moral  Law  cannot  properly  be 
sundered  here. 

In  the  popular  and  even  in  the  scholastic  discussions,  the 
Law  of  God  is  often  taken  and  defined,  solely  from  and  in  view 
of  its  relations  to,  and  its  demands  on,  individuals,  and  their 
personal  merit  and  demerit — that  is,  its  whole  scope  is  said  to 
be  fulfilled,  its  end  reached,  by  the  infliction  of  penalty  on  the 
disobedient,  or  the  conferring  of  reward  on  the  obedient.  The 
law — taken  in  this  sense — it  is  said,  must  be  fulfilled  to  the 
letter.  On  this  basis,  and  with  these  definitions,  many  have 
said,  In  the  Atonement  the  demands  of  law  are  not  and  cannot 
be  satisfied  strictly:  the  Atonement  is  not  a  legal  transaction. 
Then,  because  it  is  seen  that  if  the  whole  of  moral  government 
and  moral  law  is  simply  the  carrying  out  of  distributive  justice, 
the  Atonement,  which  is  substitutionary,  cannot  be  brought 
under  such  government  and  law,  ground  has  often  been  taken 
which  logically  results  in  the  position  that  the  Atonement  is 
not  under  moral  government  or  law  at  all.  Adhering  to  the 
position  that  the  whole  of  moral  government  is  in  and  by  moral 
law,  addressed  to  each  individual's  conscience  and  will,  many 
who  would  be  classed  with  the  "New  Schools"  of  American 
theology  have  involved  themselves  in  the  position,  that  while 
the  atonement  is  an  expedient  of  moral  government,  while  it 
manifests  God's  holiness  and  hatred  of  sin,  it  is  nevertheless  a 
transaction  out  of  the  strictly  moral  administration  of  God.  It 
has  been  said  that  "the  satisfaction  of  divine  justice  is  merely 
an  established  phrase,"  and  that  the  whole  theory  of  the  Atone- 
ment is  that  "it  satisfies  general  justice,"  in  the  sense  that  it  is 
the  expression  of,  and  provides  for  giving  realization  to,  God's 
disposition  to  secure  the  highest  and  purest  happiness  of  the 
universe. 

In  opposition  to  this  the  points  to  be  maintained  are:  (a.)  The 
Atonement  is  under  moral  government  and  under  moral  Jaw. 
(b.)  A  moral  government  is  one  which  is  administered  by  mora] 


472  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

law.  Moral  government  is  government  by  moral  law.  (c.)  Ae 
there  is  no  procedure  on  the  part  of  God  in  his  dealings  with 
his  intelligent  universe  that  does  not  come  within  his  moral 
government — least  of  all  would  the  greatest  of  transactions,  the 
Atoning  Sacrifice  of  his  Son.  (d.)  His  moral  law,  which  is  the 
expression  of  what  his  holiness  demands,  both  in  the  universe 
as  a  whole  and  in  each  individual,  is  in  force  at  every  point 
of  his  government,  and  must  be  met  and  "  satisfied  "  in  its  re- 
quirements. 

II. — But  Moral  Law  has  two  main  ends. 

1.  To  secure  the  supremacy  of  holiness — of  holy  love1 — in 
the  universe;  this  is  the  generic  end. 

2.  To  furnish  the  rule  for  individuals — moral  agents — exact- 
ing conformity  to  that  generic  end.2     This  rule  is  carried  out 
in  distributive  justice,  in  rendering  to  each  according  to  his  deeds. 
Here,  only  personal  obedience  with  the  accompaniment  of  re- 
ward, and  disobedience,  with  penalty,  can  be  considered.     If  it 
is  insisted  that  the  Atonement  satisfies,  directly,  the  law  and 
justice  of  God,   in  this   sense,   we  are  driven  either  to  Anti- 
aomianism  or  to  "  a  relaxation  "  of  the  demands  of  law,  such  as 
we  have  in  the  modified  satisfaction  theory. 

3.  Distributive  Justice  is  subservient  to  General  or  Public 
Justice:  only  it  must  always  be  understood  that  general  justice 
is  the  real,  essential  justice  of  God,  that  which  requires  the  su- 
premacy of  holiness  in  the  universe,  and  not  merely  that  which 
seeks  to  procure  the  greatest  happiness. 

4.  Hence,  if  General  Justice  is  fully,  directly,  gloriously  sat- 
isfied, Distributive  Justice  is  really  and  entirely,  though  inci- 
dentally, satisfied. 

III. — Of  the  Divine  Holiness  as  related  to  the  Divine  Law. 

1.  The  divine  law  is  an  expression  of  the  divine  holiness: 
the  securing  and  maintaining  of  that  holiness  is  the  end  of  the 
divine  government;  the  law  is  given  to  secure  that  end:  all 
other  divine  procedures  tend  to  that  end. 

Divine  holiness  is  a  mode  of  the  divine  love:  viz.,   Love 

'  See  Lectures  on  the  Nature  of  True  Virtue. 
2  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy." 


THE    KEDEMPTION    ITSELF.  473 

seeks  to  communicate  all  good  :  holiness  is,  and  seeks  the 
highest  moral  good  =  rectitude,  of  moral  beings.  Divine  love 
is,  supremely,  love  of  holiness — God's  own  and  that  of  all 
others. 

2.  To  secure  this  end,  viz.,  manifesting  and  establishing   the 
divine  holiness,  the  law  has  its  sanctions,  chiefly  rewards  and 
penalties.      These  ore  not  its  ends,  but  means  to  its  end.     To  es- 
tablish and  maintain  holiness — moral  rectitude — is  the  final  end 
or  object  of  the  divine  law,  is  its  grand,  ultimate  end.     In  this 
is  the  highest  good  of  rational  and  moral  beings. 

The  law  demands  personal  obedience,  and  punishes  dis- 
obedience, in  order  to  holiness.  The  punishment  of  the  individ- 
ual cannot  be  the  final  object  of  the  divine  government,  the  divine 
holiness:  it  is  final  in  the  case  of  the  impenitent,  as  far  as  their 
destiny  is  concerned,  but  in  relation  to  God,  it  is  not  an  absolute 
end,  but  a  mode  of  manifesting  the  divine  holiness. 

3.  Hence,  in  this  discussion,  holiness,  moral  government,  and 
law  are  three  modes  of  the  same  thing:  the  law  having  a  two- 
fold  end  in   view,  or,  as  we  may  say,  the  same  end  undei  a 
two-fold  aspect:  the  first  great  end,  to  manifest  and  establish 
the  divine  holiness;  the  second,  a  subordinate  means  thereto,'  the 
personal  demands  on  individuals — of  their  obedience,  with  re- 
ward— or  if  disobedient,  of  their  righteous  punishment. 

4  Hence,  too,  the  justice  which  is  satisfied  in  the  Atonement 
cannot  be  of  a  different  kind  from  justice  in  general:  it  is  the 
true,  holy  justice  of  God,  that  which  requires  the  maintenance 
of  the  supremacy  of  holiness.  It  cannot  be  resolved  into  ex- 
pediency, nor  into  Utilitarianism,  nor  into  the  good  of  the  whole 
(as  happiness) ;  but  it  is  that  justice  which  the  Law  is  designed 
t  enthrone. 

IV. — The  Relation  of  Christ's  Atonement  to  the  End  of  the 
Law. 

1.  Atonement  rests  generally  on  the  idea  of  mediation:  ita 
most  general  aspect  is  that  of  a  mediation  between  God  and 
man.     The  whole  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  is  involved. 

2.  It  rests  on  the  idea  of  substitution — in  a  moral  sense: 


474  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

under  God's  moral  government,  one,  such  a  One,  may  stand 
and  transact  for,  instead  of,  others.  Here  is  the  mystery  of 
Kedeinption  by  God.  If  it  is  not  a  transaction  under  moral 
government,  there  is  no  sense  in  it:  if  it  is  not  essentially  moral, 
a  part  of  moral  administration — then  what  is  it?  And  if  tho 
whole  of  moral  government  be  in  and  by  law,  then  the  Atone- 
ment must  be  under  the  law.  And  if  the  whole  of  moral  gov- 
ernment is  not  by  and  through  law — what  is  moral  government? l 

3.  The  Atonement  being  thus  a  substitution,  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  it  is  something  done  and  secured  under  the 
law — something  which  is  instead  of,  which  takes  the  place  of, 
what  the  sinner  deserved.  This  is  the  very  idea  of  substitution, 
that  not  the  thing  itself  is  presented,  but  something  else — some- 
thing which  answers  the  same  purpose. 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  terms  are  defined,  it  is  impossible  to 
call  the  Atonement  a  matter  of  pure  distributive  justice,  because 
that  has  respect  ultimately  and  solely  to  personal  desert — merit 
and  demerit.  (Yet,  as  we  have  urged,  distributive  justice  is 
satisfied  in  the  sense  that  all  the  ends  which  it  was  intended  to 
secure  are  met:  for  the  believer,  all  penal  claims  are  cancelled.) 

But  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  Atonement  is  not  a 
proper  transaction  under  the  divine  moral  government,  under 
moral  law,  a  manifestation  of  the  demands  of  the  divine  holiness 
and  justice — unless  all  these  terms  are  restricted  to  the  narrow 
sense  of  distributive  justice. 

That  the  Atonement  is  under  God's  moral  government  no 
one  will  contest,  however  some  may  take  positions  which  might 
load  logically  to  the  denial  of  it.  That  moral  government  is  in 
and  by  moral  law,  is  certainly  true  and  undeniable.  So  the 
Atonement  must  be  under  the  law,  and  that,  too,  has  been 

•[There  is,  however,  this  statement  made  elsewhere  by  the  author:  Moral  gov- 
ernment is  to  be  taken  not  in  the  sense  of  an  administration  by  pure  law,  but  in 
the  sense  of — all  the  means  and  instrumentalities  which  are  used  to  secure  the 
ends  of  that  government.  "Pure  law,"  here,  evidently  means:  law  as  the  pub- 
lished rule  of  action  with  its  sanctions,  issuing  in  strict  distributive  justice.  In 
tho  text,  "law"  rather  means:  the  whole  requirement  of  the  divine  holiness,  cov- 
ering all  procedures  in  God's  moral  government.] 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  475 

proved  from  Scripture.  That  it  was  not  under  the  law  in  the 
sense  of  distributive  justice,  seems  plain:  it  cannot  be,  if  the 
standard  definitions  of  that  justice  be  adhered  to.  What  remains 
then?  It  is  necessary  to  say — either,  that  it  is  out  ot  the  moral 
sphere  altogether — or  else,  that  it  is  a  transaction  which  answers 
the  same  grand  ends  as  are  intended  to  be  answered  by  distrib- 
utive justice,  but  in  a  different  way. 

4.  What,  then,  are  the  ends  answered  by  distributive  justice, 
and  how  does  the  sacrifice  made  by  Christ  secure  these  ends? 

(a.)  The  ends  answered  by  distributive  justice  are:  the  sus- 
taining and  showing  God's  supreme  regard  to  holiness,  which 
He  does  by  demanding  the  obedience,  and  punishing  the  dis- 
obedience, of  each  and  all  his  moral  subjects.  Punishment,  i.  e., 
suffering  for  transgression,  is  demanded  on  two  grounds:  (1)  as 
the  just  desert  of  personal  transgression ;  (2)  to  answer  the  ends 
of  public  justice:  penalty  relates  to  both:  Atonement  has  respect 
not  to  the  first,  but  to  the  second. 

(&.)  Christ,  in  his  atoning  work,  answers  these  same  ends: 
(1)  As  He  is  our  Mediator — as  by  his  Incarnation,  life,  and  death, 
He  stands  and  is  in  our  stead,  instead  of  the  whole  race;  (2) 
More  specifically,  as,  standing  in  our  stead,  in  our  place,  under 
the  law,  for  us,  He  obeyed  and  suffered  in  our  stead;  (3)  Still 
more  specifically,  as  his  obedience  and  death  in  our  stead  answer 
the  ends  of  public  justice — show  God's  supreme  love  of  holiness 
and  hatred  of  sin — since  it  is  thus  manifest  that  only  a  perfect 
obedience  and  suffering  for  disobedience  can  answer  the  ends  of 
the  divine  government.  That  is,  the  obedience  of  each  and  all 
individuals  is  demanded,  in  order  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
divine  holiness.  Instead  of  this,  we  having  failed  in  obedience, 
and  being  subject  to  penalty,  Christ  in  our  stead,  in  stead  of  the 
demands  on  each  and  all,  does  and  suffers  what  answers  the 
same,  the  identical  ends.  What  He  did  and  suffered  is  not  the 
same  in  kind  or  degree,  but  the  same  in  essence,  nature,  and  in 
its  relation  to  the  end  or  design  of  the  divine  government  or 
law. — Are  Christ's  sufferings  penalty,  then  ? — Not  in  the  sense 
that  distributive  justice  was  meted  out  to  Him,  but  in  the  wider 


476  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

sense,  in  which  penalty  includes  suffering  under  the  law,  to 
show  God's  displeasure  at  sin — in  the  sense  in  which  suffering 
is  demanded  to  answer  the.  ends  of  public  justice,  which  is 
holiness. 

V. — Yet  while  making  these  statements  as  demanded  by  the 
Scriptures,  and  as  not  against  reason,  we  must  still  say,  that 
there  is  a  background  of  mystery  in  the  Atonement,  as  well  a«  in 
the  Incarnation,  and  in  the  Atonement  in  connection  with  th<. 
Incarnation,  which  no  man  can  fully  fathom,  which  has  not  been, 
and  was  not  meant  to  be,  fully  revealed. 

The  view  given  above  answers  the  question,  what  is  the 
relation  between  what  Christ  did  and  the  demands  of  holiness, 
which  the  mere  governmental  view  does  not:  it  does  not  answer 
the  ultimate  metaphysical  question,  hoiv? 

So  to  speak,  the  whole  ontology  and  physiology  of  the  sys- 
tem of  Redemption  is  not  disclosed.  It  is  a  theological  rather 
than  an  ethical  system :  it  is  religious — a  system  of  divine  re- 
alities— up  to  which  our  theories  of  moral  government  do  not 
reach.  It  is  not  a  merely  moral  government  at  all;1  it  is  that, 
and  more,  profoundly  more. 

VI. — In  general  we  may  say  this:  Partial  theories  of  the 
Atonement  give  different  aspects  of  the  comprehensive  truth. 

1.  The  Atonement  of  Christ  does  produce  the  highest  sub- 
jective moral  impression :  but  the  ground  of  the  impression  is, 
that  we  see  in  it  our  guilt  and  the  divine  holiness;  this  is  the 
source  of  the  impressiveness. 

2.  It  also  has  one  of  its  ends  in  our  regeneration:   but  it 
ehows  how,  in  regeneration,  sin  and  guilt  are  taken  away,  and 
God's  favor  is  insured.     Regeneration  is  grounded  in  our  union 
with  Christ.     The  giving  of  new  life  is  grounded  in  the  Incar- 
nation and  the  Atonement. 

1  [The  author  elsewhere  gives  it  as  his  judgment,  that  an  ethical  system  like 
that  which  Edwards  had  in  view,  covering  all  the  points  of  the  revealed  system, 
would  make  ethics  and  theology  to  be  identical,  and  he  asserts,  as  is  seen  in  this 
discussion,  that  in  siich  a  large  sense,  the  divine  government  is  moral  throughout. 
The  statement  in  the  text  must  be  taken  to  mean,  that  the  divine  government  ia 
not  to  be  measured  and  judged  in  all  its  scope  by  any  human  theory  of  ethics j 
that  it  all  comes,  in  a  divinely  perfect  way,  under  the  ultimate  idea  of  Bight, 
would  be  strenuously  asserted  by  him.] 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  477 

3.  It  also  symbolizes  the  inward  transaction — the  death  to 
Bin  and  living  unto  God — in  affecting  and  eloquent  language: 
but  the  essence  of  that  transaction  is  in  the  reconciliation  of  the 
soul,  its  pardon,  justification ;  and  that  the  Atonement  sets  forth. 

4.  A  moral  impression  is  made  upon  the  universe,  by  what 
Christ  does,  which  God  accepts:  but  the  Atonement  gives  also 
the  means  by  which  this  impression  is  produced. 

5.  The  Atonement  "renders  it  consistent  for  God  to  pardon 
sin  and  bestow  infinite  blessings  upon  those  who  had  committed 
sin."     It  "satisfies  general  justice  "  in  the  sense  of  benevolence: 
it  secures  the  highest  "good "of  the  universe,  viewed  as  true 
happiness  as  well  as  holiness.     But  the  true  theory  points  out 
the  specific  mode:  it  shows  the  ligament  between  the  two  things 
— sacrifice  and  pardon. 

6.  Also,  the  view  we  have  indicated  shows  that  God's  justice 
is  satisfied.     Moreover,  all  his  other  attributes  are  satisfied,  in 
the  sense  of  having  here  the  most  glorious  exercise  and  mani- 
festation.    The  view  shows  how  distributive  justice  is  satisfied, 
while  it  lets  grace  abound. 

7.  It  allows  fully,  for  pardon,  for  grace,  to  each.     Grace  pro- 
vided the  way.     Each  sinner  who  comes  to  Christ  is  pardoned 
in  and  through  grace.     Distributive  justice  might  still  take  its 
course:  to  all  out  of  Christ,  it  does:  it  is  satisfied  only  for  those 
in  Christ. 

8.  It  is  a  view  reconcilable  with  the  offers  of  salvation  to  all. 

9.  It  does  not  make  it  obligatory  to  save  any  but  believers, 
and  the  obligation  to  them  is  of  grace.1 

10.  Universalism  is  not  in  it:  for  the  simple  reason,  that  it 
makes  union  with  Christ  necessary  to  salvation. 

NOTE. — The  real  difference  between  the  two  chief  parties  to  the  controversy  on 
this  matter  is  on  these  points:  (1)  Is  distributive  justice  the  whole  of  the  justice, 
ihe  law,  the  holiness,  the  moral  government  of  God,  in  relation  to  man?  (2)  la 
ih<*  end  of  the  divine  government  holiness  or  happiness?  Or,  is  it  holiness  or 
—something  else  ?  In  other  words,  Does  general  justice  (=  public  justice,  real, 
essential  justice)  have  ultimate  respect  to  holiness  or  happiness?  If  general 
justice  is  taken  to  be,  essentially,  holiness,  and  to  have  supreme  respect  to  that, 
there  is  no  need  of  controversy. 

1  The  obligation  is  contracted  through  grace:  the  covenant  is  a  gracious  "prom 
iac  suspended  upon  conditions.  '* 


478  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

§  1.  Statement  of  the  Question. 

It  is:  Did  Christ  die  for  all  men  or  only  for  the  elect?  Some 
who  contend  for  the  latter  position  differ  among  themse  ves:  a 
part  insisting  that  the  sufficiency  and  efficiency  of  the  Atone- 
ment are  identical,  that  Christ  suffered  what  the  elect  deserved 
and  only  that:  others  taking  the  ground  that  the  Atonement 
is  sufficient  for  all,  yet  made  only  for  the  elect,  that  only  the 
provision  for  them  was  in  God's  design,  that  the  sufficiency  for 
others  is  simply  incidental.  There  are  also  differences  among 
the  advocates  of  a  General  Atonement.  Lutherans:  Christ  died 
to  make  such  satisfaction  that  God  could  offer  salvation  to  all. 
Election  is  denied.  Arminians:  that  God  might  offer  salvation 
to  all  on  the  ground  of  a  less  strict  obedience.  This  also  denies 
election.  Others:  to  prevent  the  evils  of  mere  pardon,  to  sustain 
the  authority  of  a  beneficent  government.  This  allows  election. 

There  may  be  points  of  agreement: 

(1)  As  to  the  nature  of  the  Atonement;  (2)  As  to  its  suffi- 
ciency and  universal  applicability;  (3)  As  to  its  actual  applica- 
tion— to  believers  only,  or,  leaving  out  of  view  Lutherans  and 
Arminians, — to  the  elect  only. 

To  the  question,  then,  Did  Christ  come  into  the  world,  suffer 
and  die,  solely  for  the  elect?  the  theory  of  Limited  Atonement 
replies:  That  was  the  sole  design:  all  other  objects  effected 
thereby  are  not  of  the  design,  but  incidental;  the  truth  of  Gen- 
eral Atonement  says:  The  Atonement  made  by  Christ  is  made 
for  all  mankind,  is  such  in  nature  and  design,  that  God  can  save 
all  men,  consistently  with  the  demands  of  holiness,  on  condition 
of  faith  and  repentance. 

Explanations: 

1.  The  distinction  is  to  be  made  between  Atonement  and 
Redemption.  Atonement  is  the  provision. 

24  The  design  of  the  Atonement  was  to  save  the  elect,  but  not 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  479 

merely  to  save  them ;  it  was  also  designed  to  impart  some  bless- 
ings to  the  whole  world,  and  to  make  the  offer  of  salvation  and 
the  duty  of  accepting  Christ  urgent  upon  all  who  hear. 

3.  Not  that  it  was  actually  designed  to  be  applied  to  all,  but 
to  some. 

4.  Not  that  it  is  consistent  with  all  the  interests  of  the  divine 
government  for  God  actually  to  save  all,  but — consistent  with 
the  demands  of  penal  justice. 

5.  The  Atonement,  as  such,  does  not  save  any. 

§  2.  Proof  of  General  Atonement 

1.  The  key-passage  is  1  Tim.  iv.  10. 

2.  God  oifers  salvation  to  all  men :  therefore  it  has  been  pro- 
vided for  all. 

Isa.  xlv.  22;  Iv.  1-3;  Matt.  xi.  28-30;  Rev.  iii.  20;  xxii.  17. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  meaning  is:  "Some  among  all 
classes"  or  "in  all  lands."  But  (a.)  this  is  an  unscriptural  dis- 
tinction; (b.)  we  do  not  know  that  the  offer,  in  the  sense  of  "ef- 
fectual calling,"  is  made  to  "some  in  all"  these  cases:  (c.)  the 
sincerity  of  God  is  here  at  stake :  He  offers  to  all  a  salvation 
which  He  has  not  provided  for  all. 

3.  Special  guilt  is  ascribed  to  those  who  reject  the  atonement. 
Matt,  xxiii.  37;  Luke  xiv.  17;  John  iii.  19;  Acts  vii.  51. 

4.  Scripture  declares  the  Atonement  to  be  for  all. 

John  i.  29;  iii.  17;  xii.  47;  1  Tim.  ii.  6;  2  Cor.  v.  14,  15; 
Heb.  ii.  9;  1  John  ii.  2. 

5.  All  men  receive  some  benefits  from  the  atonement, 
(a.)  The  offer  of  eternal  life,  to  many  non-elect. 

(&.)  The  knowledge  of  the  divine  plan  and  ways, 
(c.)  The  continuance  of  probation  and  many  temporal  bless- 
ings. 

6.  There  is  an  argument  for  General  Atonement — ex  concessis. 
It  is  conceded  to  be  "sufficient"  for  all:  then  it  was  designed 

to  be  so:  then,  it  is  consistent  for  God  to  offer  —and  if  to  offer, 
then  to  grant,  on  conditions.  To  the  question,  "  Is  it  sufficient 
then  for  fallen  angels  ?  "  the  obvious  reply  is,  Christ  did  not  come 
for  them* 


480  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

7.  Some  special  arguments. 

(1)  The  parallel  between  Adam  and  Christ,  Rorn.  v.  .18 

(2)  Christ  lays  down  His  life  for  some  not  saved.    Rom.  xiv.  1 5  ; 
I  Cor.  viii.  11;  Heb.  x.  29;  2  Pet.  ii.  1. 

(3)  From  the  connection  of  truths,     (a.)  From  the  view  it 
gives  of  the  glorious  character  of  the  divine  government.     God, 
the  God  of  grace.     (6.)  From  the  effects  of  the  doctrine  on  men 
— the  high  moral  influence,     (c.)  From  the  view  it  gives  of  the 
final  condemnation  of  the  lost.     God's  mercy  provided  a  way: 
they  refuse:  their  condemnation  is  just — resisting  grace,     (d.) 
Christ's  relations  to  the  universe  are  consistent  only  with  General 
Atonement. 

§  3.   Objections  to  General  Atonement. 

1.  It  supposes  different  and  inconsistent  purposes  in  God. 
— Not  so :  one  purpose  is,  to  make  the  salvation  of  all  possi- 
ble ;  another  is,  to  save  some ;  what  inconsistency  ? 

2.  God  makes  provision  for  an  end,  which  He  determines 
never  to  effect. 

— Not  so:  God  makes  provision  to  make  the  salvation  of  all 
men  possible. 

3.  It  is  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine  of  election. 

— Not,  if  election  is  on  this  basis.  The  condemnation  at 
least  of  some  non-elect  is,  in  part,  on  the  ground  of  refusal. 

4.  The  divine  holiness  demands  the  salvation  of  all  for  whom 
provision  is  made. 

— Not  if  other  good  reasons  forbid. 

5.  The  Scripture  says,  Christ  died  to  save  his  people. 

— It  also  says,  Christ  died  for  the  whole  world.  Christ's  special 
design  does  not  exclude  a  more  general  design.  To  say,  Christ 
came  to  save,  redeem,  deliver,  sanctify  his  people,  is  most 
certainly  true,  but  is,  in  this  argument,  a  petitio  principii;  it 
assumes  that  Christ  in  his  work  had  only  one  design.  The  doo- 
trine  of  General  Atonement  does  not  assert  that  the  purpose  of 
God  in  Christ's  death  had  equal  respect  to  the  elect  and  the  non- 
elect,  in  the  sense  that  God  intended  to  apply  it  equally. 

6.  From  the  union  of  Christ  and  his  people.     All  that  Christ 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  481 

did,  it  is  said,  He  did  for  those  who  are  united  to  Him  by 
faith. 

This  is  most  true,  but  is  irrelevant  here.  The  doctrine  of 
General  Atonement  does  not  assert  that  all  that  Christ  did 
and  does,  He  does  for  all  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   INTERCESSION   OF   CHRIST 

Here  we  make  the  transition  to  the  Third  main  Division  ot 
Theology.  The  Intercession  of  Christ  has  both  a  Priestly  and  a 
Royal  side. 

I. — The  general  view :  the  super-historical l  relation  of  Christ 
to  the  world. 

When  earthly  heroes,  patriots,  statesmen,  poets,  orators,  phi- 
losophers, philanthropists,  and  even  saints  pass  away,  from  the 
scenes  of  their  wars,  their  sacrifices,  their  counsels,  their  elo- 
quence, their  wisdom,  their  beneficence,  or  their  spiritual  con 
flicts,  they  leave  behind  them,  it  may  be,  a  lasting  memory  and 
an  imperishable  renown;  but  they  themselves  are  taken  away 
from  all  conscious  and  direct  and  living  intercourse  even  with 
their  dearest  friends  and  their  most  devoted  adherents.  Imagi- 
nation and  memory  may  linger  upon  their  words;  their  praises 
may  be  rehearsed  in  eulogies  and  song;  their  image  may  be 
recalled  by  sculpture,  by  painting,  and  in  poetry;  their  deeds 
may  be  transmitted  from  sire  to  son  in  a  long  and  grateful  tra- 
dition ;  their  lives  may  even  be  depicted  as  an  embodiment  and 
summary  of  the  whole  century  in  which  they  lived,  and  thus 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation.  But  their  living, 
personal  presence  is  neither  felt  nor  known,  unless  it  be  in  the 
mere  fancy  of  some  materializing  spiritualist,  confounding  the 
fiction  of  a  disordered  imagination  with  the  facts  of  a  supernat- 
ural sphere. 

1  See  Martensen,  Dogm.,  p.  365. 


482  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

But  in  startling  contrast  with  all  others,  we  find  that  a  be- 
lief in  the  real  and  living  presence  of  Christ,  after  his  departure 
from  the  world,  remains  the  constant  heritage  of  his  church. 
We  come  to  Him  daily,  as  to  a  Personal  Friend,  for  succor,  for 
wisdom,  and  for  strength.  His  Presence,  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  Majesty  on  high,  greets  the  eye  of  faith,  as  it  looks  upward. 
In  the  hour  of  contest,  of  anguish,  of  death,  we  see  that  loving 
eye,  we  lean  upon  that  mighty  arm.  We  have  not  an  High 
Priest  who  cannot  be  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities. 
Our  Advocate  is  not  deaf  to  our  petitions.  If  any  man  sin,  we 
have  an  Advocate,  a  Paraclete,  with  the  Father.  In  that  He 
suffered  being  tempted,  He  is  able  to  succor  them  that  are 
tempted.  He  is  able  to  save  to  the  uttermost  all  that  come 
unto  God  by  Him,  seeing  that  He  ever  liveth  to  make  interces- 
sion for  them.  Between  the  Christian  and  death — the  wages 
of  sin — is  the  divine  Deliverer:  between  the  Christian  and  God 
is  the  divine  Mediator:  and  who  then  shall  lay  anything  to  the 
charge  of  God's  elect,  seeing  it  is  Christ  who  maketh  intercession 
for  them? 

It  is  this  loving  care  and  presence  of  the  God-man,  this  con- 
stant activity  for  his  kingdom,  which  is  denoted  in  Scripture 
and  handed  down  in  the  faith  of  the  church,  as  his  Intercession. 
His  work  of  Intercession  is  that  of  a  King  to  whom  our  souls 
have  been  committed,  as  well  as  that  of  a  Priest  by  whom  our 
sins  have  been  expiated. 

II. — The  Qualifications  of  Christ  for  this  work. 

His  nature  is  allied  to  God  and  knit  with  ours  in  inseparable 
bonds. 

His  sacrifice  alone  is  the  basis  of  his  moving  petitions. 

His  dignity  gives  them  their  authority. 

By  his  rights  they  are  made  effectual. 

Only  He  is  qualified  so  to  intercede,  that  his  intercession 
shall  be  always  effectual,  and  for  all,  and  for  each  thing  that 
He  may  ask.  He  alone,  the  only-begotten  Son  who  is  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  knows  the  very  mind  of  God,  and  knows 
the  Father  as  the  Father  knoweth  Him. 

He,  the  High  Priest,  holy,  harmless,  and  undefiled,  can  inter- 


THE    REDEMPTION    ITSELF.  483 

cede  with  perfect  holiness,  so  that  no  earthly  desire  shall  mar 
the  purity  of  his  request. 

He  can  stand  before  the  eternal,  holy  Majesty,  as  Sponsor 
and  Advocate,  having  satisfied  the  divine  justice,  and  thus 
transferred  the  sovereignty  of  justice  into  a  sovereignty  of  love. 

His  work  of  intercession  can  be  coextensive  with  the  race 
and  with  the  utmost  stretch  of  history.  He  can  intercede  for 
all  men,  in  all  times,  for  barbarian  and  Scythian,  bond  and  free, 
for  the  lettered  and  the  rude,  for  the  prince  on  his  throne,  for 
the  savage  in  his  forest,  for  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  of  the 
old  dispensation,  for  the  apostles,  martyrs,  and  heralds  of  the 
new.  His  intercession  is  as  eternal  and  unchangeable  as  the 
priesthood  on  which  it  is  based,  and  as  the  kingdom  in  which 
his  regal  petitions  are  the  sum  of  all  other  prayers,  and  give 
their  virtue  to  all  other  forms  of  interceding.  He  ever  liveth 
to  make  intercession. 

There  arises  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  at  the  morning  and 
the  evening,  and  through  the  labors  of  the  day,  a  perpetual  in- 
cense of  adoration  and  of  petition ;  it  contains  the  sum  of  the 
deepest  wants  of  the  human  race,  in  its  fears  and  hopes,  its 
anguish  and  thankfulness;  it  is  laden  with  sighs,  with  tears, 
with  penitence,  with  faith,  with  submission;  the  broken  heart, 
the  bruised  spirit,  the  stifled  murmur,  the  ardent  hope,  the 
haunting  fear,  the  mother's  darling  wish,  the  child's  simple 
prayer:  all  the  burdens  of  the  soul,  all  wants  and  desires,  no- 
where else  uttered,  meet  together  in  that  sound  of  many  voices, 
which  ascends  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  God  of  hosts.  And 
mingled  with  all  these  cravings  and  utterances  is  one  other 
voice,  one  other  prayer,  their  symphony,  their  melody,  their 
accord — deeper  than  all  these,  tenderer  than  all  these,  mightier 
than  all  these — the  tones  of  One  who  knows  us  better  than  we 
know  ourselves,  and  who  loves  us  better  than  we  love  ourselves 
— and  who  brings  all  these  myriad  fragile  petitions  into  one 
prevalent  intercession,  purified  by  his  own  holiness,  and  the 
hallowing  power  of  his  work. 

III. — In  what  does  his  Intercession  consist  ? 

1.  His  Intercession,  in  its  largest  sense,  may  be  said  to  con 


484  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

sist — in  all  his  agency,  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  foi  the 
final  and  complete  redemption  of  man.  Whatever  He  does,  on 
the  basis  of  his  sacrifice,  now  and  ever,  in  the  way  of  mediation 
between  God  and  man,  is  comprised  in  this  intercession,  taken 
in  its  fullest  scope.  It  consists  not  in  words  alone,  but  also  in 
deeds :  his  succor,  his  pity,  his  care,  his  love  for  each  and  all  his 
followers ;  his  guardianship  in  the  hour  of  temptation,  his  aid  in  our 
spiritual  conflicts,  his  grace  imparted  according  to  our  need,  the 
balm  of  his  consolation,  his  strength  in  our  weakness,  the  answers 
to  all  prayers  put  up  in  his  name:  all  belong  to,  and  make  a  part 
of,  his  intercession. 

2.  We  need  not  be  embarrassed  by  the  suggestion,  that  be- 
cause He  is  one  with  God,  therefore  to  talk  of  intercession  is  as 
if  we  spoke  of  a  man's  interceding  with  himself.    For  even  between 
the  divine  Persons  of  the  Trinity,  there  is  doubtless  converse  as 
well  as  community;  communion  as  well  as  oneness;  converse  in 
thought  and  reciprocity  in  love.     Moreover,  all  these  acts  of  in- 
tercession are  in  Christ's  human  nature  and  in  his  mediatorial 
office;  they  belong  to  Him  as  the  God-man,  and  the  federal  head 
of  the  race ;  so  that  there  is  no  more  difficulty  about  conceiving 
of  the  Intercession,  than  of  the  Incarnation,  in  connection  with 
the  Divinity  of  Christ. 

3.  From  its  very  nature  the  Intercession  has  a  two-fold  aspect 
and  relation;  it  looks  both  Godward  and  man  ward;  it  is  for  us 
and  is  unto  God.     It  embraces  in  its  comprehensive  scope  what- 
ever pertains  to  the  application  of  redemption.1     Thereby  our 
imperfect  prayers  are  made  perfect;   our  daily  transgressions 
pardoned;  our  penitence  is  made  available;   our  feeble  desires 
for  holiness  are  enlivened;  our  faith  is  emboldened;  our  weak- 
ness is  strengthened;  our  darkness  illumined;  our  righteousness 
made  blameless;  our  sanctification  insured.     And  so,  in  this  In- 
tercession, we  have  a  constant  and  living  access  to  the  Father, 
by  that  new  and  living  way.     The  mere  sense  of  duty  disquiets 

vus  as  we  think  of  our  sins;  the  power  of  philosophy  reaches 

1  Schneckenburger,  Christologie,  pp.  124,  129,  thinks  it  would  not  embrace, 
strictly  speaking,  the  regeneration  itself,  but  all  that  belongs  to  the  perseverance 
and  sanctification  of  the  children  of  God. 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  485 

chiefly  to  the  discipline  of  the  intellect;  we  may  strive  even  for 
sanctification,  and  if  it  is  in  our  strength,  the  striving  reveals  to 
us  chiefly  our  sinfulness  and  weakness.  But  when  we  think  of 
Christ  as  a  living  and  personal  Intercessor,  duty  in  Him  becomes 
persuasive,  truth  vivid  to  the  heart,  and  sanctification  a  reality 
and  a  power;  we  know  then  what  He  meant  when  He  said,  For 
their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself,  that  they  also  may  be  sanctified 
through  the  truth. 

IV. — How  is  Christ's  Intercession  conducted  ? 

1.  According  to  Heb.  viii.  1,  and  ix.  24,  the  eternal  reality 
of  Christ's  sacrifice  is  found  in  the  procedures  in  heaven,  and 
not  merely  in  the  transactions  of  earth.     As  a  Priest,  He  offers 
the  sacrifice  in  the  outer  court,  on  this  foot-stool  of  earth,  and 
then  goes  within,  to  the  Holiest,  into  heaven  itself,  there  to  ap- 
pear in  our  behalf  before  the  face  of  the  Father;  and  this  is  his 
Intercession.     There  is  one  sacrifice,  once  for  all;  yet  also  a  con- 
stant Interceder. 

2.  He   intercedes   as   our   High   Priest,   and   therefore   still 
clothed  upon   with   his   human   nature.     In   that  very  human 
nature  which  allies  Him  with  all  of  us,  making  Him  our  elder 
brother,  and  the  consummation  and  crown  of  humanity, — in  that 
human  nature,  spotless  though  fiercely  tempted,  holy  though 
weighed  down  by  the  burden  of  others'  sins,  victorious  though 
crushed  by  Jewish  hatred  and  Pagan  power  and  the  devil's  mal- 
ice and  wiles,  most  glorious  when  wearing  the  crown  of  thorns, 
most  triumphant  when  nailed  to  the  accursed  tree — in  that  very 
nature,  raised  from  the  dead  and  ascended  to  the  right  hand 
of  the  Majesty  on  high,  He  appears  as  our  Advocate  before 
the  Father's  throne — the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  making  intercession  for  us.     He  is  an  everliving  High 
Priest,  though  exalted  to  rule  and  to  reign. 

3.  The  representation  of  Him  as  an  Advocate  is  taken  from 
the  forms  of  human  tribunals,  where  the  accused  appears  by  his 
attorney,  who,  it  is  supposed,  can  plead  his  cause  better  than  He 
can  himself.     We  have  an  example  of  his  Intercession  in  John 
xvii.,  where  we  see  the  objects  which  are  sought,  the  grounds  on 
which  they  are  asked  for,  and  the  confidence  with  which  the  pleas 


486  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

are  made.  The  plea  reaches  its  culmination  in  the  utterance. 
Father,  I  will1  that  they  also  whom  thou  hast  given  me  be  with 
me  where  I  am.  Here  the  right  which  He  has  acquired  and 
which  is  most  freely  accorded  in  fulfilment  of  -the  eternal  coun- 
sel of  the  Father,  comes  into  view;  and  here,  too,  He  touches  the 
deepest  and  loftiest  aspiration  of  the  redeemed  soul :  to  be  with 
Christ,  to  see  his  glory,  to  gaze  upon  the  reality — the  archetypes 
— of  all  our  hopes,  the  substance  of  our  faith,  the  Person  of  our 
Lord. 

4.  Does  He,  then,  plead  and  ask  in  words,  in  speech — as  we 
do  one  to  another?     The  only  answer  that  can  be  given  is  that 
He  pleads  in  celestial  places  arid  with  celestial  speech.     If  it  is 
not  like  our  speech,  it  is  because  it  is  better  and  truer;  if  it  is  not 
in  mortal  tones,  it  is  with  immortal  meaning:  if  not  articulate 
in  the  air,  it  is  articulated  in  the  very  plan  of  God;  if  not  ex- 
pressed in  sentences,  it  is  wrought  into  the  counsels  of  the  Fa- 
ther of  all. 

5.  Does  He  plead  minutely,  for  each  and  every  need  and 
gracious  blessing?     We  might  ask  in  reply:  Does  God's  provi- 
dence feed  the  ravens;  does  divine  beauty  clothe  the  lilies;  does 
infinite  wisdom  number  the  very  hairs  of  our  head?     And  is 
grace  less  careful  than  providence?     Does  redemption  extend 
to  the  whole  man,  and  the  whole  life — to  body,  soul,  and  spirit; 
who  then  will  put  limits  to  the  prayers  of  our  Great  Advocate  ? 

6.  Is  his  prayer  limited  by  ours,  repeating  only  what  we  utter? 
This  is  to  ask,  Does  Christ  know  us,  only  as  we  know  ourselves? 
Alas  for  us  if  this  be  so.     He  asks  for  what  we  need,  and  not  for 
what  we  vainly  wish.     We  ask  for  prosperity,  and  our  Advocate 
asks  that  we  may  have  prosperity  through  adversity.     We  ask 
for  more  light,  and  He  interprets  our  petition  aright  and  implores 
that  we  may  be  refined  in  the  fire.     We  ask  for  day  while  it  is 
yet  midnight,  and  He  gives  us  not  yet  day  but  songs  in  the 
night. 

V. — The  Fruits  of  his  Intercession. 

These  are  to  be  considered  in  the  Third  Division  of  Theology. 
They  consist  of  Justification,  Kom.  viii.  33,  34;  the  Adoption  of 

1  John  xvii.  24, 


THE     REDEMPTION     ITSELF.  48? 

sons,  Rom.  viii.  15;  the  boldness  of  access  to  the  throne  of  a  holy 
God,  Heb.  x.  19;  the  daily  cleansing  from  sin,  1  John  ii.  2;  anrl 
the  whole  direction  of  our  affairs  unto  sanctification  and  com- 
plete redemption,  1  Cor.  i.  30. 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  SECOND  DIVISION  AND  TRANSITION  TO  THE  THIRD. 

We  have  seen  in  this  Division,  that  the  ancient  history  of 
our  race  pointed  to  Christ,  and  the  modern  has  received  its  law 
from  Him ;  that  the  insignia  of  divine  power  and  the  best  human 
influence  attended  his  earthly  career;  that  He  has  enlarged 
and  purified  our  views  both  of  human  nature  and  of  God,  and 
of  the  intimate  alliance  between  the  two;  that  He  was  fitted  as 
God-man  for  the  solution  of  the  greatest  problem  of  our  destiny, 
and  by  his  death  reconciled  us  to  God ;  that,  having  conquered 
death,  He  now,  in  his  glorified  humanity,  gives  the  most  blessed 
and  sure  hopes  to  all  who  trust  in  Him,  that  they  too  shall  be 
like  Him,  and  thus  robs  death  of  its  sting  and  eternity  of  its 
awful  forebodings,  delivering  us  from  the  fear  even  of  our  last 
enemy.  Jesus  Christ,  the  God-man,  is  the  center  of  a  grand  and 
real  economy  which  is  within  the  world,  and  above  the  world, 
and  reaches  out  beyond  the  world ;  all  the  great  points  in  the 
history  arid  destiny  of  the  race  are  made  to  converge  in  Him,  so 
that  the  central  truth  of  his  Person  is  seen  to  be  the  center  of 
the  whole  divine  economy.  And  thus  it  appears  that  the  In- 
carnation in  its  practical  bearings  is  as  wonderful  as  it  is  in  its 
inherent  sublimity:  for  the  most  comprehensive  of  purposes  is 
thus  seen  to  be  vitally  connected  with  the  most  comprehensive 
of  doctrines.  These  practical  bearings  are  now  to  be  considered 
in  the  Third  Division  of  the  system. 


DIVISION    THIRD. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION. 


DIVISION    THIRD.     . 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  EEDEMPTION. 

We  have  divided  Christian  theology  into  three  parts:  The 
Antecedents  of  Redemption ;  The  Redemption  Itself;  The  Con 
sequents  of  Redemption.  But  there  is  a  better,  a  more  Scriptural, 
title  for  this  last  part,  which  we  here  adopt.  And  before  pro- 
ceeding to  the  outlines  of  discussion  on  the  topics  which  belong 
to  this  Division,  we  shall  bring  together  some  statements  as  to 
the  general  nature  of  that  KINGDOM  OP  GOD  which  Christ  is  carry- 
ing forward  according  to  the  counsel  and  will  of  the  Eternal 
Father,  and  through  the  immediate  agency  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 
In  this  last  part  of  theology,  we  are  especially  to  emphasize  the 
Work  of  Christ  applied  ~by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  bringing  man  anew 
into  the  union  with  God  which  he  has  forfeited  by  sin.  This 
part  contemplates  God  in  Christ  as  renewing  and  sanctifying 
man  and  bringing  him  into  a  new  kingdom,  through  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  general  underlying  idea  of  this  part  of 
the  system  of  theology  is  that  of  a  union  between  Christ  and 
the  believer,  through  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  By  the  su- 
pernatural influences  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  man  is  united  to  Christ 
and  through  Christ  to  God.  The  union  between  Christ  and  the 
believer  is  the  fundamental  conception. 

The  whole  of  this  Third  Division  would  comprise  three  main 
parts:  I.  The  Union  between  Christ  and  the  believer  as  effected 
by  the  Holy  Spirit;  II.  The  Union  between  Christ  and  the 
Church.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments. 
III.  The  Consummation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Redemption  in  time 
and  eternity;  or  The  Eschatology  of  the  system. 

Here  we  have  come  to  the  proper  place  for  giving  to  the 


492  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Kingdom  of  God  a  fuller  consideration  than  it  has  previously 
had  in  these  lectures. 

This  general  position  is  to  be  affirmed  and  illustrated,  in  any 
system  of  theology  which  undertakes  to  meet  the  wants  and 
questions  of  our  times,  viz., — that  the  Christian  system  gives  us 
the  noblest  and  most  complete  and  most  animating  view  of  what 
man  is  and  is  to  be;  and  that  in  that  system,  and  not  out  of  it, 
the  great  problems  of  human  destiny  are  to  find  their  solution. 
And  it  does  this  in  what  is  sublimely  called  the  kingdom  of  God, 
a  kingdom  in  which  the  divine  purposes  of  wisdom  and  love  are 
to  be  fulfilled,  in  which  God  and  man  are  reconciled,  in  which 
the  true  basis  and  bonds  of  a  real  brotherhood  are  found,  a  king- 
dom in  which  all  men  are  to  be  reconciled  with  each  other,  by 
being  united  to  the  Father,  through  the  Son  and  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  so  that  heaven  and  earth  are  joined  in  entire  fellowship. 

In  contrast  with  schemes  of  human  device,  which  look  mainly 
at  the  temporal,  the  social,  and  the  political  welfare  of  mankind, 
this  kingdom,  while  favorable  to  all  these  and  intended  to  pro- 
mote them,  puts  them  also  in  their  just  relations.1 

I. — The  fact  that  Christianity,  in  its  very  nature,  looks  for- 
ward to  the  realization  of  such  a  kingdom,  is  one  of  the  striking 
and  grand  peculiarities  of  the  Christian  revelation. 

1.  The  lowest  view  which  any  religious  mind  can  take  of 
Christianity  is,  that  it  is  a  grand  scheme  designed  to  give  him 
personal  happiness,  to  give  him  hope  for  the  future.  The  idea 
of  such  a  one  is,  that  he  is  in  a  lost  condition,  is  converted  by 
God's  grace,  is  to  go  on  trying  to  improve  his  heart,  is  to  live 
that  others  may  be  brought  into  the  same  condition,  and  is  at 
last  to  be  transferred  to  the  eternal  mansions,  where  he  shall  be 
forever  blessed:  and  that  is  what  religion  is  given  for,  for  that 
Christ  came  into  the  world.  Now  this  may  all  be  right,  as  far 
as  it  goes ;  religion  is  good  for  this,  but — this  is  not  the  measure 
of  its  real  good.  There  is  something  that  is  worthy  of  regard 
besides  our  own  salvation.  When  we  become  Christians,  we 

1  This  is  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  Christ's  promise:  "Seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  his  righteousness;  and  all  these  things  shall  bo  added  unto 
you." 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          493 

enter  into  a  divine  kingdom,  where  the  highest  wisdom  and 
the  grandest  thoughts  and  the  most  far-reaching  purposes  of 
God  Himself  are  concentrated:  we  are  translated  into  a  sphere 
in  which  all  our  thoughts  and  purposes  are  to  find  full  employ 
in  their  largest  measure,  and  out  of  which  they  cannot  find  such 
employ. 

2.  Nor  is  the  true  idea  of  Christianity  exhausted  when  we 
conceive  of  it  as  limited  to  our  churches  and  denominations, 
and  working  in  them  for  the  spiritual  building  up  of  their  mem- 
bers.    Many  stop  here.     They  make  the  church  quite  separate 
from  the  world,  having  only  external  points  of  contact  with  it. 
Its  object  is  to  cultivate  right  internal  affections,  to  indoctrinate, 
and  to  gather  new  members  for  the  same  object.     And  mean- 
while all  the  other  interests  of  society  move  on  independently. 
The  church  has  one  object,  to  convert  men  and  prepare  them 
for  heaven:  but  there  are  other  and  almost  independent  objects 
in  the  world  likewise.     There  is  not  only  religion,  there  are 
politics  and  trade  and  the  sciences  and  the   arts  and  reforms 
of  all  kinds,   and  each   one   of  these   makes   a   separate   bat- 
talion in  the  march  and  progress  of  our  race.     The  main  care 
is  the  prudential  one,  not  to  have  them  jostle  against  each  other. 
And  what  all  these  separate  organizations  are  for,  and  whether, 
and  how,  they  are  to  unite  together,  are  unvexed  or  deferred 
inquiries. 

3.  To  one  having  such  an  idea  of  Christianity  there  comes 
some  speculative  reformer,  who  propounds  a  scheme  in  which, 
he  says,  all  these  different  interests  are  combined  and  harmo- 
nized, and  that  he  can  so  adjust  the  desires  and  passions  and 
aims  of  man  as  to  make  them  all  concurrent;  and  though  he 
may  neglect  man's  eternal  interests,  yet  he  tries  to  systematize 
all  his  present  interests:  and  though  he  may  not  satisfy  the  in- 
tellect, yet  he  inflames  the  imagination ;  and  though  he  may  not 
beget  the  conviction  that  his  scheme  is  sufficient,  yet  he  may 
weaken  the  confidence  of  those  who  give  to  Christianity  only 
an  intellectual  assent  in  the  sufficiency  of  a  system  which  holda 
itself  aloof  from  such  general  views  of  society  and  the  socia] 
state. 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Jut  such  a  view  of  the  nature  and  intent  of  Christianity  ia 

entiaUy  erroneous,  and  such  human  speculations  are  in  reality 
only  feeble  imitations  of  that  more  comprehensive  view  of  human 
nature,  interests,  and  destiny  which  was  prophesied  in  the  Scrip, 
tures  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  limned  with  a  divine  hand  in  the 
perfected  revelation  of  the  New,  and  which  is  to  be  consummated 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  constitutes  one  of  the  most  striking 
peculiarities  of  the  Christian  faith. 

It  is  a  wonderful  fact  that,  while  the  wisest  men,  as  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  among  the  most  cultivated  nations  of  ancient 
times,  in  their  conceptions  of  the  true  condition  of  man,  never 
rose  above  the  idea  of  a  single  state  or  community,  the  Jewish 
people  so  unlettered  and  remote,  looked  forward  under  pro- 
phetic guidance  to  a  divine  kingdom,  centering  in  a  glorious 
Head;  into  which  all  nations  were  to  flow,  and  in  which  all 
strifes  and  conflicts  were  to  be  adjusted.  Their  prophets  dwelt 
upon  this  hallowed  vision  with  inspired  exultation — with  faces 
not  turned  backward  to  a  golden  age  already  past,  nor  forward 
only  to  a  ruinous  catastrophe — but  backward  to  read  the  prom- 
ise made  from  the  beginning,  and  forward  to  see  its  fulfilment 
in  Him  who  was  to  bring  in  a  time  of  freedom  and  joy,  of  recon- 
ciliation between  man  and  God,  and  man  and  man,  and  who 
was  to  gather  unto  himself  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

In  the  apostolic  church,  the  signs  and  powers  of  this  kingdom 
of  God  become  still  more  marked;  for  here  are  its  conflicts  and 
victories,  its  establishment  and  progress  among  the  mightiest 
nations  and  to  the  remotest  climes.  A  few  men  went  forth,  and 
what  they  did  was  to  preach  the  words  of  this  kingdom  and  to 
seal  their  testimony  with  their  sufferings:  they  proclaimed  the 
advent  of  a  realm  which  was  to  subdue  all  nations  unto  itself; 
the  weapons  of  their  warfare  were  not  carnal,  but  spiritual ;  they 
prophesied  the  downfall  of  states — and  states  have  fallen ;  they 
proclaimed  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  were  to  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord — and  this  proclamation,  so  daring,  so  vi- 
sionary, so  utterly  unknown  to  all  other  nations  has  been  in  a 
course  of  constant  fulfilment  even  until  now.  Nation  after  na- 
tion has  since  perished,  not  one  which  then  had  an  historic  influ 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          495 

ence  now  remains:  but  that  kingdom  continues,  wider  spread, 
more  diffused  in  its  influence,  more  penetrating  in  its  power, 
with  every  century;  and  all  the  changes  of  its  outward  form  are 
only  illustrations  of  its  inherent  spiritual  might,  are  only  signs 
of  the  expansive  and  resistless  energy  of  the  Spirit  that  dwells 
within  it.  It  has  subdued  nations,  reformed  institutions,  over- 
turned philosophies,  changed  the  current  and  the.  objects  of 
human  thought,  given  to  mankind  the  highest  notions  of  justice 
and  feelings  of  benevolence,  been  at  the  foundation  of  their  con- 
tests for  civil  and  social  rights — and  this  in  a  continuous  and 
progressive  course.  If  anything  true  and  real  is  to  be  learned 
from  human  history;  if  permanence  in  spite  of  the  greatest  ob- 
stacles, if  victory  over  the  mightiest  foes,  can  give  any  assurance 
of  divine  vitality  in  that  which  thus  endures  and  conquers ;  then 
has  this  kingdom  of  God  unrivaled  claims  upon  our  faith. 

It  is  not  only  the  fact  that  in  the  idea  of  such  a  kingdom 
the  Christian  religion  stands  alone — no  other  religious  system 
knowing  anything  about  it.  But  the  idea  which  it  contains  is 
more  comprehensive  and  satisfactory  than  any  other  scheme — 
than  even  those  which  have  borrowed  from  it  their  impulse, 
when  not  their  outlines. 

II. — The  contrast  of  the  way  in  which  human  nature  and 
destiny  are  spoken  of  in  this  divinely  revealed  kingdom  with 
that  presented  by  the  most  ambitious  theorists  who  neglect  or 
would  supersede  the  Christian  faith. 

1.  They  differ  in  their  radical  conception  of  human  nature. 
The  Utopias  and  Republics  of  human  invention  take  human 
nature  as  it  is,  and  show,  not  the  necessity  of  a  renewal,  but 
the  need  of  an  adjustment  of  human  passions.  One  passion  is 
to  check  another  passion,  and  the  passions  of  one  man  the  pas- 
sions of  others.  While  the  theorist  himself  acts  in  daily  life 
just  as  really  on  the  supposition  that  men  are  depraved,  as  do 
those  who  do  not  hesitate  to  avow  it,  yet  when  he  speculates 
about  man's  nature  and  destiny,  he  becomes  unwilling  to  lift 
the  veil.  For  were  the  extent  of  the  evil  fully  recognized  then 
were  also  seen  the  need  of  a  divine  aid,  of  which  nothing  but  an 
avowed  revelation  can  give  to  man  any  assurance.  This  neg- 


496  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

lect  of  the  great  fact  of  human  depravity,  and  the  consequent 
reliance  on  natural  powers  and  agencies,  is  a  fatal  defect  in  any 
system,  in  its  adaptation  to  human  wants.  Man's  general  con- 
dition is  one  of  selfishness  and  hostility,  of  alienation  from  God. 
To  reconcile  man  with  God,  in  any  rational  view,  must  be  the 
first  great  object.  To  counteract  depravity  is  the  first  great 
necessity.  To  organize  human  passions  is  not  to  correct  human 
nature.  There  is  not  here  a  force  sufficient  for  the  emergency. 
To  put  the  body  in  a  decent  posture  does  not  stay  the  progress 
of  corruption.  But — in  contrast  with  this — in  the  kingdom  of 
God  the  depths  and  nature  of  our  evil  are  fully  disclosed,  and  the 
first  great  object  proposed  is  the  reconciliation  of  man  with  God. 

2.  Equally    contrasted   are   the   respective   systems   in    the 
means  to  which  men's  thoughts  are  directed  as  the  efficient 

'  agencies  of  reform.  In  the  one  our  attention  is  first  turned  to 
education  or  the  deliberate  re-organization  of  society;  in  the 
other,  while  the  influence  of  human  wisdom  and  education  and 
of  all  right  methods  and  organizations  is  not  neglected,  they 
are  made  to  be  wholly  secondary  to  those  spiritual  and  internal 
influences  which  are  the  gift  of  God,  in  answer  to  prayer, 
through  the  energy  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  intercourse  of  the 
soul  with  God — this,  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  the  cardinal 
means  of  renovation  and  growth.  To  work  from  within  out- 
ward is  the  law  of  God's  kingdom;  to  work  from  without  in- 
ward is  the  weakness  of  human  schemes.  To  feed  upon  eternal 
and  spiritual  truths  is  the  first  aim  of  the  Christian:  to  make 
eternal  and  spiritual  things,  seem  shadowy  and  distant  is  the 
bane  of  mere  human  reforms. 

3.  The  sense  of  this  contrast  will  be  still  further  increased, 
if  we  look  at  the  ends  which  they  respectively  propose,  as  well 
as  at  their  means  of  efficiency.     The  kingdom  of  God  views  men 
primarily  as  immortal  beings,  subject  to  an  immutable  law,  and 
having  an   eternal  destiny.     And  so  it  makes  prominent  just 
what  in  human  plans  is  kept  subordinate,1  and  it  keeps  sub. 

1  Chalmers  calls  that  "the  grand  practical  delusion,  the  bane  and  bewilder- 
ment of  our  species,  whereby  eternity  stands  before  us  in  the  character  of  time, 
and  time  wears  the  aspect  of  eternity,  whereby  the  substance  appears  to  be  the 
shadow,  and  the  shadow  the  substance." 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          497 

ordinate  that  which  man  naturally  exalts.  Nothing  is  more 
striking  in  the  history  of  the  best  human  speculations  upon  the 
destiny  of  man  than  the  limited  sphere  which  is  assigned  to  it. 
To  regulate  the  material  interests  of  society,  the  production  and 
exchange  of  wealth,  to  bring  justice  into  our  social  and  political 
relations,  to  educate  in  useful  knowledge,  in  sciences  and  the 
arts,  in  short,  to  promote  temporal  well-being — these  are  their 
highest  aims.  And  they  are  noble  and  worthy  aims,  but  riot 
the  highest  or  best.  And  never  can  they  be  pursued  with  a 
fitting  earnestness,  never  so  without  extravagance,  and  never 
so  without  danger,  as  when  they  are  viewed  only  as  subordinate 
parts  of  a  grander  and  more  comprehensive  economy,  by  which 
man  is  to  be  carried  through  the  changing  scenes  of  life  to  the 
unfolding  of  all  his  capacities  and  the  attainment  of  his  enduring 
well-being  in  that  perfected  kingdom  of  God,  of  which  this  life 
is  but  the  preparatory  theater.  That  which  is  the  very  fruit 
and  blossom  of  human  Utopias  is  but  a  subordinate  scene,  an 
initial  act  in  the  sublime  unfolding  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

4  This  divergence  in  their  respective  views  about  human 
nature,  and  the  means  of  its  advancement,  and  the  ends  which 
are  held  before  it,  has  its  ground  in  a  still  more  fundamental  dif- 
ference between  the  two  schemes,  viz.,  in  their  professed  origin. 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  revealed  to  us  as  grounded  in  the  direct 
purposes  of  the  Most  High,  and  as  containing  the  counsels  of 
infinite  wisdom  for  the  Kedemption  of  a  lost  world.  Its  origin 
and  efficiency  are  from  above.  It  has  not  its  basis  in  our  physi- 
cal constitution,  as  has  the  family,  nor  like  the  state  is  it  for  the 
establishment  and  protection  of  natural  rights,  of  property,  and 
of  temporal  justice ;  but  it  is  established  upon  the  word  of  God, 
and  upon  the  deeds  of  the  God-man.  It  looks  at  man  not  as  a 
denizen  of  this  planet,  but  as  an  heir  of  immortal  treasures,  as 
subject  to  a  law  which  shall  never  pass  away.  Human  systems,  on 
the  contrary,  profess  to  be  only  the  result  of  human  speculation, 
and  are  restricted  to  our  temporal  interests.  Whether  they  put 
our  social  condition,  or  our  freedom,  or  science,  or  art,  as  the 
great  end  and  object — and  under  all  these  four  points  of  view 
speculations  have  been  framed — still,  they  are  for  this  world 


498  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

and  for  this  alone,  for  the  seen  and  temporal,  and  not  for  the 
unseen  and  sternal.  And  the  origin  of  these  systems  is  suffi- 
ciently attested  by  the  very  shape  in  which  they  are  brought  for- 
ward. They  contain  deliberate  plans  of  reorganization,  carried 
out  in  all  their  minutiae.  But  something  more  than  a  specula- 
tion or  a  plan  is  needed  for  the  reform  of  the  race.  hat  some- 
thing more  is  given  us  in  those  sublime  facts  and  realities  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  the  kingdom  of  God;  for  this  kingdom  is  re- 
vealed to  us,  not  as  a  theory  or  speculation,  but  in  just  the  sim- 
plest way,  in  just  the  most  unpretending  form,  as  something 
which  God  has  done  and  is  doing.  This  simplicity  in  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  kingdom  of  God  is  one  of  its  most  sublime 
characteristics:  just  as  nature  is  most  unobtrusive  in  her  greatest 
works,  just  as  great  men  are  most  simple  in  that  which  consti- 
tutes their  greatness.  The  kingdom  of  God  came  in  simple  words 
and  energetic  deeds.  There  was  much  less  speculation  about  it 
than  there  is  about  many  a  modern  plan  for  reforming  the  na- 
tions. To  really  reform  mankind,  we  need  the  deepest  convic- 
tion that  the  m.ind  of  no  man  has  fashioned  the  scheme,  and  that 
the  power  of  One  more  than  man  is  enlisted  for  its  accomplish- 
ment: that  the  ends  which  it  proposes  are  eternal,  and  that  the 
means  it  has  at  its  command  can  reach  and  rectify  the  heart  of 
our  disorders,  and  combine  all  our  interests  in  one  harmonious 
and  perpetual  kingdom. 

III. — Some  of  the  more  prominent  characteristics  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  both  as  to  what  it  is,  and  what  it  is  to  be. 

1.  The  most  striking  fact  in  respect  to  it  is,  that  this  king- 
dom is  described  as  established  and  gathered  together — central- 
ized as  we  might  say — in  One  Person,  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  one  of  its  prime  glories  that  it  has  for  its  head  and 
center  a  being  in  whose  wonderful  person  are  united  the  attri- 
butes both  of  divinity  and  humanity,  and  who  is  thus  fitted  to 
be  the  Mediator  between  God  and  man;  a  person  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  this  kingdom  in  the  most  stupendous  sacrifice, 
by  which  the  highest  Jioral  problem  of  the  race  was  solved;  a 
being  fitted  to  all  our  human  wants — our  wants  as  sinners — so 
near  and  gracious  that  the  vilest  and  lowliest  may  come  to  Him, 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  499 

and  so  majestic  and  mighty  that  He  can  welcome  and  save  aU 
that  come  unto  Him ;  a  being  beyond  the  glories  of  whose  per- 
son and  the  wonder  of  whose  work,  human  thought  in  its  lar- 
gest speculations  has  never  reached,  and  to  whom  human  love 
in  all  its  tenderness  and  trust  may  ever  turn,  and  who  is  near- 
est to  us  with  his  richest  blessings  when  our  misery  is  most  real 
and  our  needs  most  urgent.  Faith  in  Him  is  the  beginning  of 
the  new  creation,  and  glory  with  Him  is  its  consummation.  In 
such  a  person  is  the  kingdom  of  God  centralized  and  knit  to- 
gether. 

2.  Another  of  its  peculiar  characteristics  is,  that  the  truths 
which  center  in  Christ  are  described  as  applied  to  the  human 
heart  by  a  subtle,  mighty,  and  persuasive  influence — that  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  whose  power  reaches  to  the  very  thoughts  and  in- 
tents of  the  heart,  and  who  subdues  our  sinfulness  by  implant- 
ing new  and*  higher  principles  of  action,  and  who  so  acts  upon 
the  soul  that  its  freedom  is  not  impaired,  but  enlarged.     Thus 
at  the  very  foundation  of  this  kingdom  we  have  the  agency  and 
working  of  God,  in  his  three-fold  personality,  as  Father,  Son, 
and  Spirit,  and  from  them  go  forth  the  influences  which  give 
it  shape  and  perpetuity.     The  anatomy  of  this  kingdom  is  found 
in  the  Triune  Godhead. 

3.  This  kingdom  is  one  which,  from  its  very  nature,  is  adapted 
to  enter  into  and  remould  all  other  institutions  in  the  highest 
and  best  conceivable  manner.     It  does  this  by  its  spiritual  na- 
ture, making  the  laws  and  principles  of  all  other  institutions 
gradually  submissive  to  its  own  higher  spirit  and  laws,  giving  to 
all  that  is  lower  its  fitting  place  and  its  moral  worth.     It  is  able 
to  do  this,  as  is  nothing  else.     When  the  lower  prevails  over 
the  higher,  it  is  oppression ;  when  the  higher  prevails  over  the 
lower,  it  is  law.    The  kingdom  has  already  done  this  in  countless 
instances ;  it  is  still  doing  it,  in  such  an  increasing  extent  that, 
were  we  not  familiar  with  it,  and  did  we  judge  it  as  we  judge 
other  things,  we  could  only  wonder  at  it.     There  is  no  doctrine 
of  philosophy,  no  scheme  of  man,  no  other  organized  influence, 
which  has  gone  as  has  the  kingdom  of  God,  to  all  men  of  every 
name  and  degree — from  the  most  brutish  to  the  most  civilized — 


500  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

and  found  entrance  and  made  conquest.  And  this  is  because 
its  principles  and  influences  and  teachings  are  not  only  most  sub- 
lime but  also  most  simple,  simple  in  the  sense  of  being  directly- 
adapted  to  human  nature  and  human  wants,  for  this  is  the  only 
real  test  of  the  simplicity  of  a  doctrine. 

4.  Not  only  is  it  thus  adapted  to  man's  most  urgent  wants 
but  it  also  affords  the  most  efficient  means  for  developing  the 
whole  of  human  nature,  giving  to  all  our  powers  their  highest 
energy  and  noblest  motives.     It  ennobles  love  and  dignifies  the 
very  love  of  self;  it  opens  to  the  deepest  and  most  luminous 
knowledge,  it  gives  the  strongest  incentives  to  increase  in  wis- 
dom.    It  brings  the  highest  motives  to  bear  upon  the  perform- 
ance of  all  our  social  and  political  duties,  and  to  all  the  virtues 
of  the  character  it  adds  grace  and  strength. 

5.  That  it  is  thus  fitted  to  all  our  relations  and  institutions, 
and  gives  them  their  highest  character,  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  a  Christian  family,  a  Christian  community,  and  a  Christian 
commonwealth  are  felt  to  be  the  highest  forms  which  the  family, 
society,  and  the  state  can  assume.  ^ 

6.  When  we  would  labor  for  the  reform  of  the  race,  what 
teachings  can  we  put  in  the  very  van  of  the  contest  in  preference 
to  the  Christian  view  of  the  equality  and  -brotherhood  of  man- 
kind, of  the  evils  of  the  inordinate  love  of  wealth,  of  the  terrible- 
ness  of  war,  of  the  necessity  of  justice,  and  to  its  exhortations  to 
the  love  of  our  neighbor  and  our  brethren.     All  true  reforms 
can  only  be  the  carrying  out  of  the  spirit  and  the  injunctions  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.     Moreover,  the  safety  of  reforms  is  best 
argued  on  the  ground  of  the  permanence  and  victories  of  that 
kingdom.     And  patience  in  the  midst  of  discouragement  and 
defeat  is  made  more  serene  by  our  conviction  that  this  kingdom 
must  finally  prevail,  that  the  triumphs  of  sin  and  the  maxims 
of  expediency  are  for  the  day  and  the  hour  only,  while  the  tri- 
umphs of  truth  and  righteousness  are  for  eternity. 

7.  Philosophy,  science,  and  art,  in  their  deepest  and  truest 
principles,  are  in  harmony  with  God's  kingdom,  are  advanced 
by  it,  and  approximate  to  their  perfect  form  as  they  receive  and 
enthrone  its  truths. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  501 

8.  That  view  of  our  future  destiny,  which  is  contained  in 
sure  promise  and  definite  description  only  in  the  kingdom  of 
God,  is  the  only  view  which  answers  perfectly  to  all  man's  most 
enlarged  and  developed  capacities,  and  to  his  highest  and  most 
hallowed  aspirations. 

9.  It  is  for  this  kingdom  that  God  has  been  ever  laboring, 
it  is  his  great,  his  grandest  work,  it  contains  the  wealth  of  His 
wisdom,  the  crown  of  his  purposes.1     It  will  be  the  very  embodi- 
ment of  what  is  most  grand  and  glorious  in  divinity,  so  far  aa 
it  can  be  revealed  to  man.     And  in  it  man  too  has  his  part. 
Human  achievement  in  carrying  out  divine  purposes  will  have 
its  eternal  fruit  and  reward  in  this  kingdom. 

10.  How  far  it  will  be  perfectly  realized  upon  the  earth  is  a 
question  of  secondary  importance.    It  is  a  kingdom  the  very  idea 
of  which  when  once  embraced  can  stimulate  human  powers  to 
their  highest  energy,  human  love  to  its  noblest  self-sacrifice, 
oven  to  forgetfulness  of  self.     That  it  will  go  on  until  the  ful- 
ness of  the  seas  is  gathered  in,  until  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains 
the  Lord's  house  shall  be  established,  until  every  kingdom  shall 
become  Christ's,  until  all  war  and  oppression  and  unrighteous- 
ness shall  cease,  until  the  very  glory  and  fulness  of  the  nations 
shall  be  given  to  Immanuel — this  we  know,  for  it  has   been 
declared.     Whether  its  fullest  glories  are  to  be  revealed  on  the 
very  theater  where  sin  has  so  long  reigned,  or  in  another  sphere 
— that  we  know  not  fully.     And  whether  we  know  it  or  not 
is  of  little  moment  compared  with  what  we  do  know,  and  that 
is,  that  this  kingdom  of  God  will  be  perfectly  consummated  in 
glory  and  beauty  somewhere  and  at  some  time. 

1  In  this  light  the  doctrine  of  Election  should  be  viewed. 


PART    I. 

THE  UNION  BETWEEN  OHEIST  AND  THE  INDIYTDUAL 
BELIEVER,   AS  EFFECTED  BY  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT. 

THIS  EMBRACES  THE  SUBJECTS  OF  JUSTIFICATION,  REGENERATION,  AND  SANCTIFIOATION;  'WITH  THS 
UNDERLYING  TOPIC,   WHICH  COMES  FIRST  TO  BE  CONSIDERED,  ELECTION. 


BOOK  I. 

PREDESTINATION,  ELECTION,    THE  EFFECTUAL  CALL. 

CHAPTER    I. 

GENERAL    OBSERVATIONS. 

I.- — The  topics  now  coming  up  are  known  as  the  doctrines 
of  grace.  Grace,  in  its  widest  sense,  means,  any  favor  bestowed 
by  a  superior  on  an  inferior.  All  our  gifts  in  this  sense  are 
grace.  But  it  is  here  used  in  a  specific  sense  as  favor  bestowed 
upon  the  individual,  fallen  man,  through  the  influence  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Man's  entire  sinfulness  is  presupposed,  and  Christ's  aton- 
ing work,  and  here  we  consider  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

II. — This  operation  must  be  traced  back  to  the  purpose  of 
God,  as  part  of  the  decrees  of  God.  These  have  been  already 
considered  in  part.  It  was  stated  that  they  included  all  events 
in  Providence,  as  thej  take  place.  As  events  are  in  fact,  so 
they  are  eternally  in  the  purpose  of  God.  The  doctrine  of  de- 
crees is  simply  that  of  divine  providence  considered  as  an  eternal 
plan  in  the  counsels  of  God.  Any  objection  to  decrees  is  an 
objection  to  the  course  of  Providence.  These  decrees  form  one 
decree,  one  plan.  All  are  connected  with  the  main  decree,  or 
the  great  end  for  which  God  made  and  governs  the  world.  That 
portion  of  the  divine  decrees  which  has  respect  to  the  final  con- 
dition and  destiny  of  moral  beings,  especially  of  man,  is  called 
Predestination. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  503 

III. — The  doctrine  of  Predestination  has  to  do  simply  with 
God's  purpose  or  plan,  as  that  includes  the  final  condition  of 
each  individual,  just  as  it  comes  to  be.  It  contemplates  the 
final  condition  of  each  individual  as  a  part  of  the  divine  decree; 
not  of  course  without  respect  to  what  has  gone  before,  but  in- 
cluding the  whole  life  of  the  individuals,  of  which  this  end  is 
the  consummation. 

IV. — In  further  elucidation  of  what  is  meant  by  Predestina- 
tion, we  make  the  following  statements: 

1.  Predestination  is  not  fatalism.     Fatalism  views  all  events 
and  all  actions  as  a  mere  matter  of  necessity,  springing  from 
natural  causes  and  ultimately  from  blind  causes.     But  Predes- 
tination refers  all  events  ultimately  to  the  purpose  of  a  wise  and 
holy  God. 

2.  The  doctrine  of  predestination  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  supralapsarianism.     In  many  objections  to  it,  it  is  so  con- 
founded.    Supralapsarianism  views  the  fall  of  the  human  race 
as  directly  decreed  on  the  part  of  God,  in  order  to  the  divine 
glory.     The  sublapsarian  view  is,  that  evil  was  permitted  and 
not  efficiently  produced,  and  that  in  the  order  of  decrees  the 
permission  of  evil  goes  before  the  decree  for  redemption. 

3.  Predestination  is  not  the  same  as  the  doctrine  of  the  divine 
efficiency.     This  latter  doctrine,  when  carried  out  strictly,  says 
that  each  event  has  for  its  cause  a  direct  divine  agency, — that 
God  by  immediate  power  brings  into  being  every  act  of  moral 
agents, — that  his  action  in  the  matter  of  sin  is  as  distinct  as  in 
the  matter  of  holiness.     The  doctrine  does  not  give  heed  to  the 
distinction  between  what  is  decreed  as  part  of  a  plan,  and  what 
is  decreed  by  itself. 

4.  Those  who  hold  to  predestination  are  not  the  only  persons 
who  hold  to  the  eternity  of  God's  decrees.     Many  Arminians 
hold  a  doctrine  of  eternal  decrees,  while  they  deny  predestina- 
tion.    Those  who,  believing  in  regeneration,  believe  also  that 
man's  free  will  goes  before,  while  God  assists,  can  also  believe 
that  from  all  eternity  God  determined  to  assist,  and  therefore 
they  can  hold  to  eternal  divine  decrees. 

5.  Predestination  is  not  arbitrary,  in  the  common  usage  of 


504  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

the  word  arbitrary.  The  doctrine  implies  that  all  the  divine 
purposes  have  wise  and  holy  reasons.  Predestination  is  arbi- 
trary in  the  sense  that  God  is  not  dependent  on  any  will  but  his 
own  for  his  purposes  and  plans;  in  the  sense  that  He  acts  from 
mere  will  and  mere  power,  it  is  not  arbitrary.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  see  the  reasons:  these  are  for  the  divine  will  and  not  for 
ours;  but  God  would  forfeit  his  rational  nature  if  He  ordained 
anything  without  a  good  and  sufficient  reason. 

6.  The  theological  systems  which  include  predestination  do 
not  differ  from  other  systems,  e.  g.>  the  Arminian  system  in  its 
modifications,  in  respect  to  the  grounds  of  God's  final  judgment 
upon  men  as  to  their  final  condition.     In  both  cases  the  ground 
is  wholly  moral.     It  is  the  relation  to  Christ,  involving  the  good 
or  bad  character  of  respective  individuals,  in  regard  to  which 
this  destiny  is  fixed. 

7.  The  systems  which  include  predestination  differ  from  the 
Arminian  systems  in  their  view  of  the  nature  of  divine  grace, 
and  of  the  way  in  which  that  grace  operates.     The  latter  say, 
and  must  say  ultimately,  that  grace  only  assists,  and  is  depend- 
ent on  the  human  will  for  its  use, — grace  aids  human  volitions. 
The  former  say  that  grace  ever  precedes  and  directs  the  human 
will,  while  the  will  is  free.     The  term  in  Arminianism  is — assists : 
in  Calvinism — grace  precedes  and  directs.     This  is  sometimes 
expressed  in  the  formula :  Grace  is  irresistible.     This  term  is  not 
to  be  approved,  because  it  suggests  an  idea  which  is  not  intended 
to  be  conveyed.     Irresistible,  usually  means,  that  which  cannot 
be  resisted  or  overcome  even  if  the  will  be  opposed  to  it,  e.  g.,  in 
the  case  of  natural  force :  but  this  cannot  be  the  meaning  in  this 
case,  because  the  divine  purpose  always  carries  the  will  with  it. 

8.  The  ultimate  principles  on  which  the  assertion  of  the  di- 
vine predestination  rests  are  two:  (a.)  All  events  must  have  a 
sufficient  cause;  (b.)  Of  all  true  religious  life  God  is  the  cause. 
The  doctrine  of  original  sin  is  presupposed,  which  makes  the 
need  of  God's  causative  energy  in  the  new  life  still  stronger  and 
more  imperative. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          505 


CHAPTER  II 

ELECTION    AND    REPROBATION. 

The  doctrine  of  Predestination  runs  into  the  doctrine  of 
Election.  Election  is  a  part  of  Predestination.  Election  is  the 
expression  of  God's  infinite  love  towards  the  human  race,  re- 
deeming man  from  sin  through  Christ,  and  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
bringing  him  into  this  state  of  redemption,  so  far  as  it  is  consist- 
ent with  the  interests  of  God's  great  and  final  kingdom.  It  is 
the  divine  love  in  its  most  concrete  and  triumphant  form.  It 
is  called  in  Scripture  the  riches  of  divine  grace. 

§  1.  Statement  of  the  Scriptural  Doctrine  of  Election. 

Westm.  Shorter  Cat,  Q.  20.  In  Larger  Cat.,  Q.  13,  more  par- 
ticular statements  are  given:  that  the  election  is  in  Christ — that, 
it  is  eternal — and  includes  the  means  thereof. 

1.  Election  may  be  said  to  be:  God's  eternal  purpose,  as  a 
part  of  his  whole  plan,  to  save  some  of  the  human  race,  in  and 
by  Jesus  Christ.     Election  to  eternal  life  is  the  end  of  all  the  di- 
vine purposes,  including  the  means.     The  order  of  time  is  in  the 
execution  of  the  decree,  and  not  in  the  decree  itself.     The  fol- 
lowing statements  form   no  part  of  the  doctrine  of  Election: 
That  God  created  some  men  to  damn  them :  That  Christ  died 
only  for  the  elect;  That  the  elect  will  be  saved,  let  them  do 
what  they  will;  That  the  non-elect  cannot  be  saved,  let  them  do 
what  they  can;  That  the  non-elect  cannot  comply  with  the  con- 
ditions of  salvation  through  natural  inability.     These  positions 
we  have  considered  elsewhere:  whether  in  themselves  they  are 
true  or  false  is  not  in  question  now:  what  we  here  say  is,  they 
form  no  part  of  the  doctrine  of  Election. 

2.  The  Scriptural  statements. 

(a.)  The  fullest  passage  is  Eph.  i.  4,  5,  which  gives  the  doc- 
trine in  its  connections. 

(&.)  Election  has  reference  to  individuals  and  not  to  nations 
or  classes.  Luke  xiii.  23:  "Few"  is  individualizing,  and  so 


506  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

in  the  verses  which  follow.  Mark  xiii.  20;  Rom.  viii.  20-30: 
"  Foreknew  "  includes  a  purpose  as  well  as  a  knowledge.  It  is 
not  a  mere  vision  of  knowledge.  John  xv.  16:  "Ye"  must 
mean  individuals:  John  vi.  30-39;  Acts  xiii.  48;  Rom.  ix.  11. 

(c.)  It  is  to  eternal  life.  The  object  of  the  whole  plan  of  re- 
demption is  to  bestow  eternal  life  upon  the  lost:  Acts  xiii.  48; 
1  Thess.  v.  9,  10 ;  2  Thess.  ii.  13 ;  John  xvii.  2.  So  that  it  is  not 
a  call  to  external  privileges. 

(d.)  It  is  not  of  works.  Although  it  is  through  and  by  the 
gracious  acts  of  the  individual.  The  works  are  the  election  it- 
self in  its  carrying  out.  They  are  not  the  basis  of  it,  but  a  part 
of  it:  2  Tim.  i.  9;  Rom.  ix.  11;  xi.  6;  Eph.  i.  4,  5;  1  Pet.  i.  2.  In 
short,  the  election  is  to  faith  and  holiness,  and  is  not  of  persons 
as  holy. 

(e.)  The  election  is  ultimately  to  be  referred  to  God:  Matt. 
xi.  26;  Rom.  viii.  29;  ix.  11;  Eph.  i.  11;  Rom.  xi.  5. 

(y.)  The  election  is  in  Christ:  Eph.  i.  4;  John  xvii.  2. 

(g.)  The  election  is  eternal  and  unchangeable:  Eph  i.  4; 
Rom.  viii.  29;  John  vi.  37;  2  Thess.  ii.  13;  Rev.  xiii.  8. 

3.  Proof  of  the  doctrine  from  other  doctrines. 

(a.)  It  results  from  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  sovereignty. 

(b.)  It  results  from  the  fact  that  salvation  is  of  grace:  Eph. 
ii.  5,  8. 

(c.)  It  results  from  the  doctrines  of  depravity  and  original 
sin.  By  nature  we  are  in  such  a  state  that  only  divine  grace 
can  rescue  us. 

(d.)  It  results  from  the  doctrine  of  regeneration. 

(e.)  It  is  confirmed  by  the  experience  of  believers.  They  all 
confess  that  the  new  life  within  them  is  of  grace. 

4.  Theories  of  Election. 

I. — The  theory  of  Nationalism.  This  is,  that  nations  are 
elected;  God  sends  the  gospel  to  certain  peoples;  Election  is  not 
to  eternal  life,  but  is  a  national  call.  It  is,  living  among  a  peo- 
ple where  God's  grace  is  proclaimed.  Some  non-elect  in  this 
sense  may  finally  be  saved:  in  nations  where  the  gospel  is  not 
preached,  some  may  be  saved  through  an  accidental  hearing  of 
the  word,  or  through  a  special  calling  of  divine  providence. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  507 

Remarks: 

(a.)  This  theory  concedes  the  principle.  God  may  make  a  dis- 
crimination in  regard  to  nations  on  a  large  scale,  and  be  just 
arid  benevolent  in  doing  it. 

(6.)  It  is  impossible  to  see  or  show  how  God  can  elect  nations 
without  electing  individuals.  The  general  demands  the  specific, 
the  universal  the  particular.  In  the  order  of  thought  the  generic 
comes  first  and  the  specific  next,  but  in  the  order  of  history  the 
specific  comes  first  and  the  general  afterwards. 

(c.)  The  argument  of  the  apostle  in  Rom.  ix.,  which  is  relied 
upon,  is  against  the  theory.  He  has  before  shown  (chaps,  v., 
vi.,  vii.,  viii.)  that  in  Christ  alone  are  justification  and  sanctifica- 
tion :  then  he  encounters  the  objection  from  the  Jew  as  being 
the  seed  of  Abraham:  the  promise  to  Abraham,  he  says,  is  not 
frustrated  by  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,  leaving  Jews  to  perish : 
God  has  always  thus  shown  his  sovereignty:  Isaac  only  was 
called,  7-9;  Esau  and  Jacob  are  instanced,  10-14;  Pharaoh, 
verses  15-18.  This  is  not  unjust  to  those  whom  He  condemns  on 
account  of  their  sins.  Israel  is  passed  by  because  they  sought 
righteousness  not  by  faith  but  by  the  works  of  the  law.  Verse 
22,  vessels  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction,  gives  the  substance 
of  the  doctrine  of  Reprobation. 

(d.)  The  arguments  already  given  to  show  that  Election 
is  of  individuals,  and  that  it  is  to  eternal  life,  disprove  this 
theory. 

II. — The  theory  of  Ecclesiastical  Individualism:  God  calls 
individuals,  but  only  to  the  external  privileges  of  his  church. 

This  is  advocated  by  many  of  the  divines  in  the  Episcopal 
Church,  in  order  to  unite  Arminianism  with  their  theory  of  the 
church.  As  many  of  them  interpret  u  regenerated  "  in  the  bap- 
tismal service  as  meaning,  united  with  the  church  in  an  external 
way,  so  election  is  understood  as  election  to  the  external  privi- 
leges of  the  church. 

Remarlcs: 

(a.)  The  theory  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes. 

(6.)  It  includes  the  principle  of  election.  If  God  discriminates 
externally,  He  may  internally. 


508  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

(c.)  It  excludes  the  divine  agency  from  the  most  important 
part  of  the  whole  work — the  internal  and  spiritual. 

(d.)  Scripture  testifies  to  the  election  of  individuals  to  faith, 
holiness,  and  salvation. 

III. — The  Arminian,  and  in  part  the  Lutheran,  and  in  part 
the  Pelagian,  theory. 

This  asserts  that  election  is  not  external,  nor  national,  but — 
is  election  to  salvation:  it  is,  however,  an  election  of  those  who 
repent  and  believe — not  of  individuals,  but  of  that  class  of  per- 
sons who  repent  and  believe.  It  is  of  all  those  who  comply 
with  the  conditions.  God  foresees  that  such  and  such  will  ac- 
cept the  conditions,  and  therefore  elects  them — on  the  basis  of 
his  seeing  that  they  will  of  themselves  repent  and  believe. 
Pelagians  say  that  one  man  repents  and  believes  and  another 
does  not,  and  election  and  reprobation  are  based  upon  these 
facts.  Arminians  say  that  God  has  given  to  all  men  sufficient 
grace, — that  there  is  no  urgency  of  that  grace,  no  specific  effi- 
ciency of  it,  but  one  accepts  it  and  another  does  not. 

Remarks: 

(a.)  This  makes  God!s  agency  to  be  dependent  on  that  of  man. 
Man  chooses  God  first,  and  then  God  chooses  him  to  blessedness. 
The  Scriptures  say:  According  as  He  chose  us  in  Him  ....  that 
we  should  be  holy  and  without  blemish  before  Him  in  love, 
Eph.  i.  4. 

(6.)  The  doctrines  of  sin  and  grace  show  that  there  is  a  moral 
inability  in  man  which  only  God's  grace  can  or  does  overcome. 

(c.)  The  theory  is  against  Christian  experience.  No  Arminian 
or  Pelagian  can  pray  according  to  this  doctrine,  however  much 
he  may  preach  it. 

§  2.  Reprobation. 

This  includes  two  parts,  Praeterition  and  Reprobation  (Final 
Condemnation).  The  Praaterition  is  a  sovereign  act;  the  Repro- 
bation is  a  judicial  act.  The  predestination  in  this  case  does 
not  refer  to  the  sinful  state  as  coming  from  God  (the  supralap- 
sarian  view),  but  to  the  divine  act  which  is  consequent  upon  the 
sinful  state.  In  the  prseterition,  the  divine  agency  is  simply 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  509 

negative — a  not  interfering.  The  reprobation  is  judicial  and  in 
that  sense  positive.  If  any  are  finally  lost,  there  must  of  neces- 
sity be  a  divine 'purpose  in  respect  to  the  loss:  otherwise  there 
is  that  in  the  fact  which  was  not  taken  into  the  plan.  It  is  not 
Calvinistic  to  say  that  God  created  men  to  damn  them,  or  that 
He  made  them  on  purpose  to  condemn  them,  in  order  to  show 
his  justice.  That  position  has  never  been  accepted  in  this  coun- 
try, and  in  the  school  of  Edwards  it  was  effectually  demolished. 
The  end  of  God  in  creation  is  not  to  illustrate  his  justice  in  con- 
demning some  to  eternal  torment.  The  condemnation  is  sim- 
ply incidental  to  the  great  end  of  the  divine  government,  which 
is  the  securing  of  the  supremacy  and  triumph  of  holiness.  In 
regard  to  those  who  do  not  submit  to  that  government,  this  end 
is  attained,  as  far  as  it  can  be,  by  their  destruction;  but  that 
destruction  is  not  the  end  or  object.  The  chief  objections  to 
this  part  of  the  doctrine  of  Predestination  almost  all  arise  from 
viewing  reprobation  as  something  by  itself,  and  not  as  a  part  of 
God's  whole  plan.  The  representation  often  made  is  that  God 
chose  the  punishment  as  though  He  delighted  in  it, — but  God 
delights  in  holiness.  Another  objection  comes  from  supposing 
reprobation  to  be  without  reference  to  character  or  desert:  but 
it  is  the  final  condemnation  on  account  of  the  desert. 

1.  The  Scriptural  proof. 

(a.)  The  doctrine  of  Election  involves  Prseterition. 

(b.)  All  passages  that  prove  the  final  condemnation  of  some 
imply  the  doctrine  of  Keprobation.  More  particularly,  Rom.  ix. 
18;  1  Cor.  i.  26;  1  Pet.  ii.  8;  Jude  15. 

§  3.   Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  Predestination. 

First  Class.  Objections  on  philosophical  grounds.1  The  ob- 
jections are  to  the  two  main  statements:  Every  event  must 
have  a  cause,  God  is  the  cause  of  all  spiritual  life. 

Obj.  I. — The  more  consistent  Arminians  object  that  the  law 
of  causality  does  not  apply  to  the  production  of  our  religious 
states.  They  assert  that  the  law  of  causality  does  not  apply  to 
all  events  in  time, — that  events  produced  by  the  power  of  the 

'  Well  stated  in  Bledsoe's  Theodicy  and  Mozley's  Predestination. 


510  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

human  will  are  not  under  the  law  of  causality,  as  respects  their 
origination  in  the  will. 
Remarks: 

1.  The  law  of  causality  is  not,  in  any  consistent  thinking, 
understood  to  be  that  for  every  event  there  is  wholly  an  external 
cause.     This  notion  of  it  is  derived  from  the  sphere  of  mechanics 
and  dynamics,  and  not  from  the  sphere  of  life,  still  less  from 
psychology.     A  stone  cannot  move  without  an  external  power 
acting  upon  it,  but  everything  having  life,  besides  the  external 
agencies  which  bear  upon  it,  has  also  an  internal  energy.     So 
it  is  in  the  human  soul.     There  is  a  principle  of  spontaneity,  of 
origination.     That  however  does  not  exclude  causality.     It  is  a 
proper  causal  power  or  energy.     The  law  still  applies,  only  we 
have  here  a  new  causal  power  given  in  the  will  itself.     Unques- 
tionably there  is  such  spontaneous  force  or  power  in  man,  so 
that  he  is  the  proper  author  of  his  own  acts.     He  is  not  the  sole 
author,  but  he  is  the  proper  author,  and  the  law  of  causality 
covers  this  spontaneous  energy  as  much  as  it  does  the  external 
influences. 

2.  Bat,  besides  this  internal  force  of  the  will,  there  must  be 
some  object  in  view  of  which  the  will  is  exerted ;  else  there  can 
be  no  choice.     Mere  will  cannot  of  itself  produce  choice.     Choice 
implies  an  end  or  object,  which  is  as  necessary  to  the  choice  as 
the  possession  of  will.     It  enters  into  the  choice  as  a  part  of  the 
whole  effect.     Volition  is  made  up  of  two  elements :  the  action 
of  the  will  and  the  thing  chosen.     These  two  together  make  up 
the  cause  of  the  volition,  as  the  effect.1 

Obj.  II. — (Mozley.)     It  is  not  to  be  affirmed  that  God  is  the 
proper  cause  or  source  of  all  religious  life,  because  if  God  be  such, 

1  [The  above  is  found  only  in  students'  notes.  The  fuller  view  is  given  in  Faith 
and  Philosophy,  p.  359  seq.  Perhaps  the  author's  statements  might  be  thus 
summed  up:  Into  choices  there  must  perforce  enter,  not  merely  the  form  of  per- 
sonal agency  but  also  its  vital  substance.  The  feelings  and  affections  can  no  more 
be  kept  out  of  the  will  than  out  of  the  man.  Self-determination  is  essential  to 
freedom,  but  self-determination  is  a  procedure  of  the  man,  and  not  of  the  will 
viewed  as  mere  capacity  of  choice.  What  is  in  the  man — as  affection,  etc.,  as  well 
as  what  he  reaches  out  to — as  object  of  desire,  etc.,  goes  to  the  self-determination, 
and  hence  it  is  vain  to  say  that  human  spontaneity  is  not  covered  by  the  law  of 
causality.  Like  everything  else  in  the  successions  of  time,  the  originations  of 
the  human  will  have  their  limitations,  their  processes,  and  their  lawr.] 


THE    KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  611 

there  cannot  then  be  first,  i.  e.,  proper  and  real,  causes  of  the  ~e- 
ligious  life  in  the  action  of  the  human  soul. 
Remarks: 

1.  There  may  be  good  and  sufficient  second  causes  working 
under  the  first,  and  having  their  proper  sphere — not  absolute, 
but  relative — not  independent,  but  dependent — yet  still  proper 
causes,   not  mere  modifications  of  the  first  cause,  but  having 
force  of  themselves. 

2.  The  very  notion  of  God  makes  Him  to  be  the  author  of 
all  religious  acts.     Religion  is  inconceivable  without  divine  in- 
fluence.    There  may  be  morality  without  divine  influence,  but 
not  religion. 

3.  All  the  more  is  such  influence  necessary  in  the  case  of  de- 
praved beings,  where  the  moral  power  is  lost.     If  God  must  be 
the  source  of  holiness  in  the  angels,  He  must  be  the  source  of  it 
in  human  beings  where  the  soul  is  alienated  from  Him. 

4.  The  Scriptures  expressly  refer  holy  acts  and  states  to  God : 
Eph.  ii.  10;  Phil.  ii.  13;  Rom.  xii.  3;  John  vi.  44. 

5.  The  Scriptures  make  a  difference  in  respect  to  the  divine 
agency  as  to  sin,  and  as  to  holiness :  making  it  direct  in  regard 
to  holiness,  and  permissive  in  regard  to  sin. 

The  Second  Class  of  Objections.  Objections  brought  against 
the  divine. justice  and  benevolence  in  Predestination. 

Obj.  III. — God  is  unjust,  or  at  least  not  benevolent,  towards 
the  non-elect. 

Remarks: 

1.  We  have  the  apostle's  reply,  in  Rom.  ix.     There  is  that 
in  the  divine  dealings  which  is  inscrutable,  in  this  as  in  other 
matters. 

2.  The  objection  is  one  against  actual  facts;  because  God 
does  actually  bring  some  to  eternal  life,  while  He  passes  by 
others,  and  must  have  purposed  to  do  what  He  actually  does. 

3.  The  objection  involves  the  assumption  that  God  ought 
to  treat  all  men  alike,  which  would  apply  against  discrimination 
in  providence  as  well  as  in  grace. 

4.  If  the  non-elect  are  sinners,  it  is  just  to  treat  them  as 
sinners.     Sinners  cannot  establish  a  daim  upon  God  for  the 


612  CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY. 

highest  measures  of  grace.     If  they  are  and  continue  to  be 
sinners,  they  deserve  punishment  as  a  simple  matter  of  justice 
5.  But — is  it  benevolent  to  pass  them  by  ?     It  is,  we  must 
say,  the  procedure  of  a  benevolent  being:  of  course  we  do  not 
*Tgue  that  the   benevolence  is  illustrated  in  the  prseterition. 
(a.)  If  we  cannot  see  how  the  benevolence  is  consistent  with 
the  prseterition,  still  we  must  admit  both  the  facts;  God  is  in- 
finitely benevolent,  and  there  are  some  whom  He  does  not  bring 
to  eternal  life;  inasmuch  as  each  is  established  by  its  own  evi- 
dence,    (b.)  Benevolence,  in  its  highest  sense,  has  supreme  re- 
gard to  holiness,  and  not  to  happiness.     Holiness  is  the  ultimate 
term  with  God  even  as  a  benevolent  being,     (c.)  If  it  is  right 
for  God  to  leave  any  to  perish  as  sinners,  it  is  right  for  Him  to 
purpose  to  do  so,  because  this  is  simply  the  same  thing  over 
again,     (d.)  God  shows  his  benevolence  to  all  men,  in  various 
ways.     The  sparing  of  their  lives  in  a  state  of  probation,  the 
provision  of  an  atonement  for  the  whole  world,  the  offers  of 
eternal  life  under  the  sound  of  the  gospel,  are  all  proofs  of  be- 
nevolence,    (e.)  Perhaps  some  weight  is  to  be  allowed  to  the 
suggestion  of  Bishop  Butler,1  that  the  election  of  all  might  be 
hazardous  to  the  interests  of  the  divine  government.     The  be- 
lief of  Universalism  certainly  has  no  tendency  to  keep  men  from 
sin.     (/.)  For  aught  that  we  know,  the  amount  and  kind  of 
divine  influence  necessary  to  secure  the  salvation  of  all  men 
might  be  inconsistent  with  God's  moral  government. 

Obj.  IV. — From  the  effect  of  the  doctrine  upon  those  who 
are  not  yet  Christians,  i.  e.,  those  who  cannot  be  said  to  be  non- 
elect,  their  case  being  not  yet  decided.  The  doctrine  of  election 
is  said  to  be  formidable  to  them. 

But,  (a.)  The  doctrine  of  election  and  preeterition  concerns 
the  final  state  of  men,  which  no  man  can  absolutely  know  be- 
forehand. A  man  cannot  know  so  that  the  doctrine  shall  deter 
him.  (b.)  The  doctrine  of  election  is,  still  further,  that  men  are 
elect  in  Christ.  It  is  on  account  of  a  general  atonement,  of  a 
provision  for  all  men.  What  a  man  has  to  do  is  not  to  deter- 
mine who  are  the  elect,  but  to  come  to  Christ,  (c  )  The  divine 

1  The  suggestion  is  approved  by  Chalmers. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.  513 

purpose  of  election  runs  through  the  human  will,  and  it  is  with 
the  conscious  action  of  this  that  man  has  to  do.  The  question 
of  salvation  conies  up  in  the  form,  Will  a  man  accept  or  reject 
Christ?  (d.)  Election  comprehends  the  means  as  well  as  the 
end,  and  not  the  end  without  the  means.  It  is  the  whole  of 
God's  plan  in  respect  to  each  individual.  Almost  all  the  objec- 
tions against  the  doctrine  of  predestination  rest  on  the  hypothesis 
that  God,  by  a  merely  arbitrary  choice,  has  consigned  individuals 
to  a  final  state.  That  is  not  the  doctrine.  The  objections  also 
rest  upon  the  hypothesis  that  an  individual  can  and  may  know 
that  he  belongs  to  one  or  the  other  class.  But  even  the  elect 
cannot  certainly  know  their  election,  or  at  all  events,  not  until 
they  come  to  assurance,  which  is  the  gift  of  God  in  their  highest 
sanctification. 

Obj.  V. — The  effect  of  this  doctrine  on  those  who  sup- 
pose themselves  to  be  of  the  elect  must  be  to  make  them 
presumptuous. 

But,  (a.)  It  is  the  saints'  perseverance  which  is  set  forth  in 
the  doctrine  of  election.  If  any  are  living  in  presumptuous  sins, 
they  cannot  claim  that  they  are  in  the  course  of  such  persever- 
ance, The  elect  are  those,  too,  who  persevere.  The  objection 
rests  on  the  notion  that  one  can  be  assured  of  election  without 
holy  exercises,  while  the  doctrine  is  that  he  can  be  assured  only 
in  such  exercises.  The  objection  assumes  that  the  end  may  be 
known  without  the  means;  the  doctrine  is  that  the  end  can  be 
attained  only  by  and  through  the  means,  and  the  certainty  of 
the  attainment  can  be  judged  of  only  in  the  light  of  the  means 
of  the  attainment.  A  kindred  form  of  the  objection  is  that  the 
elect  are  led  to  believe  that  they  may  be  saved  whatever  they 
do.  The  answer  is  that  the  doctrine  has  respect  to  God's  pur- 
pose about  the  final  state  of  believers.  No  man  can  know  any 
thing  about  the  divine  purpose  regarding  his  salvation,  except 
as  he  is  practicing  the  Christian  virtues. 

Obj.  VI. — God  cannot  sincerely  make  the  offer  of  life  to  all, 
when  He  knows  that  there  are  some  who  will  not  accept. 

The  marks  of  sincerity  in  any  offer  are  the  following: 
(a.)  That  the  blessing  offered  is  in  existence  and  at  the  dis- 


514  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

posal  of  the  one  who  offers  it.  (6.)  That  he  is  willing  that  it 
should  be  accepted,  (c.)  That  it  is  offered  on  terms  that  can  be 
complied  with  by  the  individual  to  whom  it  is  offered,  so  that 
all  that  is  needed  on  his  part  is  willingness. 

Such  is  the  case  with  respect  to  the  offer  of  salvation  to  all 
men  in  the  gospel.  It  is  a  blessing  which  really  exists,  because 
a  general  atonement  has  been  made;  it  is  a  blessing  which  God 
is  willing  to  bestow;  He  is  not  willing  that  any  should  perish. 
It  is  within  the  compass  of  man's  natural  capacities  to  comply. 
No  addition  needs  to  be  made  to  his  powers  and  faculties,  to  en. 
able  him  to  comply.  Acceptance  or  rejection  is  the  action  of 
his  own  voluntary  nature. 

There  is  an  ambiguity  in  the  discussions  of  this  subject  in 
the  different  uses  of  the  word  will.  It  is  used  sometimes  in  the 
sense  of  a  general  desire,  sometimes  of  a  specific  purpose,  (a.)  It 
is  undeniable  on  the  ground  of  Scripture  that  God  desires  the 
salvation  of  every  man  as,  in  itself  considered,  the  best  thing 
for  him.  He  offers  salvation  to  all,  and  pleads  with  them  to 
accept  it.  He  offers  that  which  is  provided,  and  which  they 
may  accept,  and  urges  it  importunately.  (6.)  God's  decree  of 
praeterition  is  not  that  some  shall  not  believe,  but  is  simply  not 
to  use  certain  means  of  moving  them  to  belief  All  things  con- 
sidered, He  has  chosen  to  pursue  his  purpose  of  having  a  people 
to  his  praise,  to  the  extent  of  insuring  belief  in  some  instances, 
but  not  in  all.  (c.)  All  of  God's  reasons  for  this  course  we  do 
not  know.  Some  reasons  are  intimated.  Blindness  of  mind, 
hardness  of  heart,  resistance  of  light,  of  grace  offered,  of  the 
influences  of  the  Spirit,  are  given  as  characteristics  of  many  of 
those  who  are  not  included  in  God's  purpose  of  election.  It  may 
be  that  many  of  the  finally  impenitent  resist  more  light  than 
many  who  are  saved. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.         515 

CHAPTER   III. 

THE     GOSPEL    CALL. 

Election  is  carried  out  through  the  proclamation  of  grace, 
through  the  call  to  repentance  and  faith,  issuing  in  the  effectual 
calling  of  those  who  are  finally  saved.  This  call  is  both  external 
and  internal.  The  external  is  in  the  preaching  of  the  gospel, 
and  the  internal  is  the  call  to  the  spirit  or  soul.  This  internal 
call,  considered  in  its  results  on  the  elect,  is  called  efficacious  or 
effectual  grace.  The  election  results  in  the  call,  both  external 
and  internal,  and  in  the  formation  of  the  elect  into  the  church. 
Some  of  those  who  are  opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  election,  e.  g., 
the  Lutherans,  make  'the  call  to  be  universal,  and  make  it  to 
consist  in  the  whole  of  divine  providence  towards  all  nations. 
The  Lutheran  formula  asserts  very  strongly  that  a  special  call 
addressed  by  the  Divine  Spirit  to  the  soul  must  be  maintained 
to  be  universal,  even  though  experience  seems  to  run  counter 
to  it. 

§  1.   Of  the  External  CaU. 

This  is  an  invitation  on  the  part  of  divine  grace  to  sinners 
to  accept  through  grace  the  blessings  offered  to  them  in  Christ, 
addressed  generally  through  the  preaching  of  the  word,  al- 
though it  may  also  be  by  the  printed  page  or  personal  conver- 
sation. It  is  as  wide  as  the  proclamation  of  the  gospel  in  any 
form.  It  includes  the  announcement  of  the  fact  of  salvation  in 
Christ,  an  invitation  to  accept  that  salvation,  an  invitation  which 
rises  to  a  command,  including  a  promise  and  a  threat — John 
iii.  16,  18.  This  external  call  is  to  be  addressed  to  all.  It  is 
part  of  the  function  of  the  church  to  see  that  it  is  addressed  to 
all  men — Rom.  x.  14,  15.  Still  further,  this  call,  as  thus  ad- 
dressed,  is  binding  upon  all  men.  Men  are  bound  to  accept 
this  gracious  invitation.  Not  to  comply  is  the  great  sin.  In 
a  state  of  ruin,  invited  to  accept  of  everlasting  life,  their  guilt 
is  heightened  if  tbey  reject.  It  is  not  addressed  to  the  elect 


516  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

alone,  but  is  addressed  to  and  binding  upon  all  men.1  This  ex- 
ternal call  has  for  its  characteristics — that  it  is  sincere  on  the 
part  of  God — that  it  may  be  resisted — and  that  it  is  adapted  to 
lead  to  conversion. 

§  2.   The  Internal  Cad. 

The  internal  call  of  God  to  eternal  life  is  a  call  of  divine 
grace  made  by  the  word,  applied  by  the  Spirit,  in  part  by  his 
direct  agency,  upon  the  soul.  This  divine  influence  upon  the 
soul  is  not  exercised  upon  one  of  its  faculties,  but  upon  all  the 
faculties  of  the  mind,  illuminating  the  understanding,  rousing 
the  feelings,  and  leading  to  right  acts  of  the  will.  Still  further, 
this  call  is  made  under  these  influences  in  view  of  two  grand 
facts:  on  the  one  hand,  the  condemnation  of  law  and  knowl- 
edge of  sin  under  the  law;  on  the  other  hand,  the  presentation 
of  Christ  as  the  Redeemer  from  sin. 

§  3.  Under  this  general  Statement,  some  Questions  and  Difficul- 
ties are  raised. 

I. — Is  the  knowledge  of  the  word,  the  Scripture,  the  revealed 
truth,  of  Christ  as  the  center  and  source  of  salvation,  always 
necessary  in  order  to  salvation  ? 

The  extreme  positions:  (1)  Except  as  Christ  is  known  the 
soul  cannot  be  included  in  the  electing  love  of  God;  there  is  no 
salvation  except  through  and  by  a  distinct  and  explicit  knowl- 
edge of  Christ.  (2)  Under  the  light  of  nature  alone  and  with- 
out Christ,  men  may  be  saved  by  complying  with  the  demands 
made  in  conscience  and  by  reason. 

Observations: — (1)  It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  is  given  and  is  necessary  to  be  given  where  men  are 
saved.  There  is,  humanly  speaking,  no  probability  of  salvation 
apart  from  such  knowledge.  (2)  It  is  equally  undeniable  that 
such  a  knowledge  of  Christ  is  necessary  to  full,  explicit,  confident 
trust.  There  cannot  be  the  peace  of  believing,  or  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  salvation,  a  personal  conviction  in  the  case  full  and 

1  This  is  one  of  the  great  points  in  the  controversy  against  the  Antinomian 
position.  See  Fuller's  "  Gospel  Worthy  of  all  Acceptation  "  and  Bellamy's  "  True 
Religion  Delineated."  It  was  such  preaching  as  this  against  a  dead  orthodoxy 
which  led  to  many  precious  results  in  revivals. 


THE  KINGDOM  OP  REDEMPTION.          517 

round,  unless  there  be  such  knowledge  of  Christ.  Without  this 
there  must  always  be  doubt  in  the  individual's  personal  experi- 
ence. (3)  Yet  there  may  be,  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  renewal  of  the  soul  without  this  explicit  knowledge. 
That  follows  from  the  secret  nature  of  the  divine  agency,  and 
from  the  position  that  infants  dying  before  actual  transgression 
are  of  the  elect.  (4)  Yet  such  internal  renewal,  if  it  be  genuine, 
will  always  lead  to  a  belief  in  Christ  as  the  only  Saviour,  when 
He  is  made  known.  The  test  of  the  reality  of  the  new  birth 
would  be,  that  as  soon  as  Christ  is  presented  the  soul  will 
welcome  Him.  This  is  in  conformity  with  the  position  in  the 
Westminster  Confession,  chap,  x.,  §  3. 

II. — Are  the  Scriptures  the  only  efficacious  means  of  such  a 
renewal?  The  purport  of  this  question  is:  whether  the  Script- 
ures considered  as  light  and  illuminating  influence,  as  addressed 
only  to  the  intellect — excluding  the  direct  operation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  on  the  soul — are  the  only  efficacious  means  of  salva- 
tion ;  or  whether,  besides  the  Scriptures  there  is  in  the  case  of 
renewal  a  direct  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  is  not  re- 
stricted to  the  word,  which  is  not  simply  by  and  through  the 
word.  Whether  the  entire  efficacious  influence  is  the  Script- 
ures and  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  the  Holy  Spirit  in  and  through 
the  Scriptures. 

The  various  forms  of  opinion:  (1)  The  Pelagian  view.  Mere 
truth,  a  vivid  presentation  of  the  truth  is  enough,  and  is  the 
only  means  about  which  we  can  know  anything  definitely.  It 
has  been  said  by  some  one,  that  if  he  was  as  eloquent  as  the 
Holy  Spirit,  he  could  so  preach  as  to  convert  souls.  (2)  Another 
opinion.  That  in  some  way,  to  us  unknown,  the  word  of  God 
as  preached  is  made  clear  and  mighty  by  the  Spirit,  and  becomes 
an  effectual  motive — yet  without  the  direct  operation  of  the 
Spirit  on  the  soul.  The  Spirit  operates  through  the  word,  so 
that  the  word  forms  the  influence  and  motive,  and  the  Spirit  in 
the  word  gives  it  efficacy.  The  word  is  the  sword,  and  the 
Spirit  wields  the  sword.  (3)  The  third  view  is,  that  besides  the 
truth  and  the  Spirit  in  the  truth,  there  is  also  a  direct  operation 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  soul. 


518  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

As  to  the  first  opinion. — It  is  conceded  by  this  that  the  Spirit 
is  the  author  of  the  truth,  that  the  gospel  truth  is  the  highest 
kind  of  truth,  but  it  is  said  that  there  is  110  other  operation  of 
the  Spirit  than  that  which  is  given  in  the  word  through  the 
truth. 

We  say :  (1)  This  revealed  truth  is  ordinarily  necessary  and 
essential.  (2)  It  is  the  instrumental  cause.  (3)  But  the  question 
remains,  Why  is  this  truth  so  much  clearer  and  brighter  at  some 
times  than  at  others  ?  Why  are  the  feelings  roused  so  strongly 
by  the  truth  on  certain  occasions,  and  left  dead  at  others  ?  This 
must  be  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  (4)  It  is 
difficult  if  not  impossible  to  conceive  of  an  operation  of  the  truth 
without  an  operation  on  the  soul.  Here  are  the  words  of  Script- 
ure: at  one  time  they  are  without  influence,  at  another  they  be- 
come effectual.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  said  to  work  through  the 
truth,  but  how  can  He  do  so  without  affecting  the  soul? 
(5)  The  Scriptures  distinctly  recognize  a  direct  operation  of  the 
Spirit. 

As  to  the  second  opinion. — This  asserts  that  the  truth  is 
made  clear  and  potent  by  some  unknown  efficacy  of  the  Spirit, 
yet  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  is  confined  to  this,  and  is  not  a 
direct  influence  upon  the  affections  and  the  will.  The  Holy 
Ghost  is  necessary,  wherever  the  word  is  uttered,  to  give  it  in- 
fluence, yet  through  the  word  alone  does  He  operate  on  the  af- 
fections and  will.  A  modification  of  this  view  is  seen  in  the 
doctrine  of  moral  suasion — that  the  Spirit  operates  on  men  as 
men  do  upon  each  other. 

Remarks: 

(1)  The  truth  is  doubtless  the  instrumental  cause,  ordinarily. 
We  are  begotten — or  brought  forth — by  the  word  of  truth 
(James  i.  18).  (2)  The  truth  is  brought  to  bear  upon  us  in 
greater  light  and  power  through  the  influence  of  the  Spirit,  in  a 
supernatural  way — by  an  operation  kindred  to  moral  suasion. 
(3)  But  unless  the  feelings  are  also  enlisted  by  influencing  them, 
how  can  the  truth  affect  them  ?  The  sensibilities  to  religious 
impressions  are  dormant  through  depravity.  They  are  tc  bo 
excited  and  roused,  in  order  that  the  truth  may  be  felt.  Through 


THE    KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  519 

this  excitation  of  the  feelings,  the  truth  becomes  clearer  and 
more  efficacious,  and  only  through  this.  A  supernatural  in- 
fluence must  be  conceded  here.  (4)  Nobody  can  deny  that  there 
are  other  kinds  of  operation  besides  that  through  the  truth.  It 
is  natural  from  what  we  know  of  God's  working,  that  there 
should  be  other  modes  through  which  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  in- 
fluence the  soul.  God  works  in  all  and  through  all.  In  the 
sphere  of  divine  providence,  the  divine  energy  attends  the 
working  of  all  second  causes.  Much  more  in  the  sphere  of 
grace.  The  divine  agency  doubtless  attends  as  much  the  opera- 
tions of  the  feelings  as  the  intellect,  and  as  much  those  of  the 
will  as  the  feelings.  It  is  impossible,  in  any  rational  view  of 
the  divine  agency,  to  exclude  it  from  any  part  of  the  work.  The 
view  under  consideration  excludes  it  from  every  part  except  the 
intellect.  The  fact  that  we  do  not  know  the  mode  of  the  Spirit's 
operations  should  admonish  us  not  to  limit  them. 

As  to  the  third  position. — This  is,  that  besides  all  that  can 
be  put  under  the  head  of  moral  suasion  and  of  supernatural  in- 
fluence through  the  truth,  there  is  in  the  renewal  of  the  soul, 
according  to  Scripture,  a  divine,  secret,  and  direct  influence. 
This  is  shown  by  the  following  considerations:  (1)  The  Script- 
ures distinguish  between  the  two,  and  assert  the  need  of  both : 
1  Thess.  i.  5,  6;  2  Thess.  ii.  13,  14;  John  vi.  44.  (2)  The  Script- 
ures also  speak  of  the  inward  working  of  the  Holy  Spirit: 
Phil.  ii.  13;  Heb.  xiii.  21;  Acts  xvi.  14.  (3)  The  descriptions 
of  regeneration  imply  this.  It  is  spoken  of  as  a  new  creation 
and  a  resurrection  to  life.  The  working  of  the  Spirit  is  com- 
pared for  its  might  with  the  working  in  Christ  when  He  was 
raised  from  the  dead:  Eph.  i.  19,  20.  (4)  The  Scriptural  view 
of  depravity,  of  man's  natural  state  and  need,  makes  such  an 
internal  working  of  the  Spirit  needful :  1  Cor.  ii.  14.  Depravity 
leaves  the  affections  dormant.  The  spiritual  affections  are 
asleep.  They  need  to  be  roused  most  of  all.  The  most  power- 
ful outward  means  are  resisted  until  God  brings  the  soul  into 
subjection.  (5)  Prayer  implies  more  than  an  operation  of  the 
word.  We  ask  God  for  grace  not  only  to  understand  the  truth 
but  to  sanctify  the  soul,  purify  the  affections,  guide  the  will,  and 


520  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

change  the  will.  In  the  struggles  of  renewal,  every  soul  feels 
that  divine  grace  working  within,  and  working  mightily,  can 
alone  save  it.  We  have  examples  of  this  in  the  prayers  in 
Scripture:  Col.  i.  9-11.  To  this  may  be  added  the  good  effects 
of  the  doctrine,  the  ascribing  to  God  our  holiness,  and  the 
cleansing  and  purifying  of  the  affections  and  dispositions,  and 
the  constant  sense  of  our  dependence  on  divine  grace  for  all 
advances  in  sanctification. 

III. — Is  there  a  common,  as  well  as  effectual,  grace?     The 
affirmative  is  the  correct  reply,  on  the  following  grounds: 

1.  From  the  experience  of  the  impenitent,  and  of  ourselves 
while  impenitent.     The  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  much 
wider  than  we  are  apt  to  suppose.     Probably  there  is  always 
more  or  less  influence  of  the  Spirit  by  and  with  the  word.     Be- 
lief in  such  common  grace  is  the  strength  and  confidence  of  the 
preacher,  and  it  is  very  probable  that  all  moral  good  in  the 
world  is  ultimately  to  be  ascribed  to  this,  even  in  the  lower 
spheres  of  humanity,  i.  e.,  to  the  influence  of  God's  grace  in  the 
course  of  his  providence.     It  is  much  more  scriptural  and  much 
safer  to  extend  the  sphere  of  the  Spirit's  influence  than  to  ex- 
tend the  scope  of  human  ability.     The  influence  is  so  wide  that 
probably  we  cannot  extend  it  too  far,  i.  e.,  in  respect  to  the  com- 
mon methods  in  which  it  is  exerted. 

2.  The  Bible  speaks  of  a  resistance  of  the  Spirit,  a  grieving 
of  the  Spirit,  which  implies  that  there  is  a  common  grace  as 
well  as  that  which  effects  the  conversion  of  the  soul.     All  that 
precedes  the  renewal  of  the  soul — the  conviction  of  sin,  any 
feeling  or  desire  leading  towards  renewal  or  a   better  life,   is 
properly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the 
way  of  common  grace. 

3.  This  common  grace  passes  over  into  effectual  grace  in 
proportion  as  the  sinner  yields  to  the  divine  influence, — so  that 
the  work  is  God's,  not  man's. 

IV. — How  does  effectual  differ  from  common  grace  ? 

1.  Effectual   grace   is   the   grace  which  effects  that   which 
common  grace  tends  to  effect. 

2.  Its  efficacy,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  owing  to  the  divine 


THE    KINGDOM    OP     REDEMPTION.  521 

influence.  It  is  God's  sovereign  power,  and  is  applied  according 
to  his  purpose  to  save  the  elect.  The  pressure  of  the  divine  in- 
fluence is  what  causes  the  efficacy.  All  that  man  does  in  the 
case  is  removing  the  hindrance. 

3.  In  consciousness,  psychologically,  we  cannot  distinguish 
the  difference  between  the  two:  we  can  ascertain  it  only  from 
results.     We  cannot  distinguish  the  divine  grace  from  the  good 
produced  by  it,  or  our  own  act,  because  it  is  only  in  our  act 
that  that  divine  grace  is  known.     That  which  is  immediately 
presented  to  the  soul  is  its  own  acts,   feelings,  and  thoughts. 
That  these  come  from  God,  we  say  on  the  ground  of  Script- 
ural testimony,  and  because  they  are  leading  to  that  which 
is   well   pleasing   to    God — renewal   and   sanctification    of   the 
soul.     We  are  conscious  of  the  reality  of  the  influence  only 
after  the  act. 

4.  This  effectual  grace  is  irresistible  in  the   sense  that  it 
carries  the  will  and  affections  with  it.     No  counter  influence  is 
supposable  in  the  case,  because  what  it  does  is  to  engross  the 
affections   and    change    the    will.     The   word    irresistible    was 
applied  to  it  first  by  the  opponents  of  Calvinism,   but  is  ex- 
plained by  Calvinists  in  this  sense — that  the  will  goes  with 
the   divine  will   and  influence,   and   there   is   no   thought   cf 
resistance. 


622  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

BOOK  II. 

OF  JUSTIFICATIONS 
CHAPTER  I. 

PRELIMINARY    CONSIDERATIONS. 

1.  If  considered  in  the  historical  order,  the  order  of  time)  tLe 
justification  of  the  sinner  before  God  comes  after  regeneration. 
Our  discussions  tend  to  it  naturally  here.     But  regeneration,  in 
the  Christian  sense,  presupposes  a  possible  justification;  it  in- 
cludes justification  as  possible  and  actual,  in  the  case  of  each  re- 
generated person.     When  regenerated,  believers  are,  for  Christ's 
sake,  justified.     Regeneration  is  not  a  mere  change  of  inward 
state,    but   of  external   relations,   through   union  with   Christ. 
Being  freely  justified   for  Christ's  sake,   man  is  brought  into 
a  state  of  pardon  and  acceptance  with  God.     The  law  no  longer 
condemns — the  sinner  is  justified. 

2.  The  question,  How  can  man  be  just  with  God?  is  at  the 
heart  of  all  religions.     The  Pagan  systems  abound  in  mortifica- 
tions, etc.,  by  which  a  justification  is  sought. 

3.  In  the  doctrine  of  justification,  the  gospel  is  most  radically 
distinguished  from  a  merely  legal  system,  and  from  any  moral 
system  which  rests  on  merely  legal  ideas.     These  make  personal 
obedience,  conformity  to  the  law,  to  be  the  only  ground  of  accept- 
ance.    In  justification,  acceptance  is  on  the  ground  of  what 
Christ  has  done,  of  his  merits, — of  what  another  has  done  for 
us,  in  our  stead.     The  doctrine  of  justification  is  a  central  one; 
it  modifies  all  the  rest ;  according  to  the  view  taken  of  this,  the 
entire  system  is  distinguished. 

4.  Views  of  the  atonement  determine  the  views  on  justifica 

1  References.  Owen,  one  of  the  ablest  treatises  in  the  English  literature.  The 
view  of  the  Anglican  Church  is  in  Bishop  Bull's  work  on  the  Harmony  between 
Paul  and  James.  There  is  a  good  exposition  of  the  Scholastic  view  in  Dr.  Hamp 
den's  Bampton  Lecture,  V.  One  of  the  best  expositions  of  the  subject  is  in  Dr 
Richards'  Lectures. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION,          523 

tion,  if  logical  sequence  is  observed.     We  have  to  do  here,  not 
with  views  of  natural  justice,  but  with  divine  methods.1 

5.  Justification  by  Faith  alone  is  the  distinguishing  article 
of  the  Reformers'  position  against  the  Roman  Catholic  system. 
Romanists  make  justification  and  sanctification  to  go  hand  iu 
hand,  personal  holiness  to  be  the  ground  or  reason  of  justifica- 
tion, and  hence  works  are  mixed  up  with  grace.     The  Reformers 
insist  on  the  direct  relation  to  Christ,  justification  for  his  sake, 
union  with  Him,  trust  in  Him.     It  is  "  the  gift  of  the  giver,  and 
not  the  reward  of  the  worker." 

6.  Nor  are  justification  and  pardon  the  same  in  Scripture. 
The  view  of  Emmons  (Works,  vol.  v.)  is:  that  justification  uis 
no  more  nor  less  than  pardon,"  that  "  God  rewards  men  for  their 
own  and  not  Christ's  obedience." 

(cr.)  But  the  words  as  used  in  common  life  relate  to  wholly 
different  things.2  If  a  man  is  "declared  just"  by  a  human 
tribunal,  he  is  not  pardoned,  he  is  acquitted,  his  own  inherent 
righteousness  as  respects  the  charge  against  him  is  recognized 
and  declared. 

The  Gospel  proclaims  both  pardon  and  justification.  There 
is  no  significance  in  the  use  of  the  word  "justify,"  if  pardon  be 
all  that  is  intended. 

(b.)  Certain  expressions  of  Scripture  are  opposed  to  the  view 
that  justification  is  simply  pardon:  Rom.  v.  1,  2,  17, 18,  21;  1  Cor. 
i.  30. 

(c.)  Justification  involves  what  pardon  does  not,  a  righteous- 
ness which  is  the  ground  of  the  acquittal  and  favor;  not  the 
mere  favor  of  the  sovereign  but  the  merit  of  Christ,  is  at  the 
basis, — the  righteousness  which  is  of  God.  The  ends  of  the  law 
are  so  far  satisfied  by  what  Christ  has  done,  that  the  sinner  can 
be  pardoned.  The  law  is  not  merely  set  aside,  but  its  great  ends 
are  answered  by  what  Christ  has  done  in  our  behalf.  God  might 
pardon  as  a  sovereign,  from  mere  benevolence  (as  regard  to  hap- 

1  If  we  regard  the  atonement  simply  as  answering  the  ends  of  a  governmental 
scheme,  our  view  must  be  that  justification  merely  removes  an  obstacle,  and  the 
end  of  it  is  only  pardon  and  not  eternal  life. 

58  See  on  this  point  a  sermon  on  Justification  by  J.  F.  Stearns  D.D.,  before  the 
Synod  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  1853. 


524  CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY. 

piness),  but  in  the  gospel  He  does  more — He  pardons  in  con- 
sistency with  his  holiness — upholding  that  as  the  main  end  of 
all  his  dealings  and  works. 

(d.)  Justification  involves  acquittal  from  all  the  penalty  of 
the  law  and  the  inheritance  of  all  the  blessings  of  the  redeemed 
state.  The  penalty  of  the  law :  spiritual,  temporal,  eternal  death, 
is  all  taken  away,  and  the  opposite  blessings  are  conferred  in 
and  through  Christ:  the  resurrection  to  blessedness,  the  gift  of 
the  Spirit,  and  eternal  life. 

(e.)  If  justification  is  forgiveness  simply,  it  applies  only  to 
the  past.  If  it  is  also  a  title  to  life,  it  includes  the  future  con- 
dition of  the  soul.  The  latter  alone  is  consistent  with  the  plan 
and  decrees  of  God  respecting  Redemption — his  seeing  the  end 
from  the  beginning.1 

7.  Justification  is  not  a  merely  governmental  provision,  as 
it  must  be  on  any  scheme  which  denies  that  Christ's  work  has 
direct  respect  to  the  ends  of  the  law. 

Neither  does  it  find  its  ground,  where  some  extreme  Prot- 
estant views  would  place  it,  in  our  internal  state  of  repentance, 
faith,  or  love,  or  any  inward  works  (this  being  made  the  distinc- 
tion from  the  Roman  Catholic  ground — external  works),  as  the 
meritorious  basis  of  our  acceptance.  That  ground  is  Christ, 
what  Christ  has  done — faith  is  the  instrument.  An  internal 
change  is  always  a  sine  qua  non  of  justification,  but  not  its  meri- 
torious ground. 

8.  Union  with  Christ  is  the  capital  idea  here.    Edwards :  "What 
is  real  in  the  relation  between  Christ  and  the  believer  is  the  foun- 
dation of  what  is  legal."    Dorner  (his  own  summary  of  his  doctrine 
in  Neue  Evang.  Kirchenzeitung,  1867,  p.  744):  (a.)  The  Actus  Fo- 
rensis  in  God  becomes  also  transeunt, — seen  in  the  "  Friedensruf 
Gottes,"  in  the  believing  soul;  (&.)  By  this,  peace  and  joy  flow 
into  the  soul;  (c.)  From  the  consciousness  of  the  forgiveness  of 

1  The  reason  why  justification  has  been  taken  as  pardon  is  two-fold,  (a. )  It  does 
involve  pardon:  this  is  its  negative  side,  while  it  has  a  positive  side  also — the  title 
to  eternal  life,  (b.)  The  tendency  to  resolve  the  Gospel  into  an  ethical  system. 
Only  our  acts  of  choice  as  meritorious  could  procure  a  title  to  favor,  a  positive  re- 
ward. Christ  might  remove  the  obstacle,  but  the  title  to  heaven  is  derived  only 
from  what  we  ourselves  do. 


THE    KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  525 

sins,  and  the  blessedness  given  therewith,  are  developed  the  de- 
sire and  love  of  the  good;  (d.)  Man  becomes  partaker  of  that 
peace  and  joy,  and  conscious  of  his  justification,  in  that  Christ  ia 
laid  hold  of  by  faith,  and  thus  the  union  or  the  marriage  of  God 
and  man  is  completed;  (e.)  The  renewed  man,  even  in  his  sanc- 
tification,  can  never  derive  (deduce)  his  gracious  estate  from 
the  sanctification,  but  only  and  always  the  sanctification  from  the 
grace. 

9.  The  statement  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Confession,  Q.  33, 
Shorter  Cat. :  "Justification  is  an  act  of  God's  free  grace,  wherein 
He  pardoneth  all  our  sins,  and  accepteth  us  as  righteous  in  his 
sight,  only  for  the  righteousness  of  Christ  imputed  to  us,  and  re 
ceived  by  faith  alone." 

Observations: 

"  Imputation  "  means,  reckoning  to  one's  account  that  which 
he  has  not — treating  one  as  if  he  were  that  which  he  is  not. 
It  does  not  mean,  transferring  of  personal  righteousness. 

The  relation  to  God  consists  in  his  exercise  of  "  free  grace," 
his  u  pardoning"  and  "accepting  as  righteous." 

The  relation  to  Christ  is  seen,  in  his  righteousness  being  that 
"  for  the  sake  "  of  which  the  justification  is  made.  The  right- 
eousness is  "imputed,"  what  is  his  is  set  to  our  account.  And  it 
is  "righteousness"  which  is  imputed:  the  transaction  is  a  moral 
one. 

The  relation  of  justification  to  ourselves  is  seen,  in  the  fact 
that  it  is  received  by  "faith  alone."  ("Yet  is  it  not  alone  in 
the  person  justified,  but  is  ever  accompanied  with  all  other  sav- 
ing graces."  Confession,  chap.  xi.  §  2.)  Faith  is  the  instrument 
by  which  justification  is  received,  and  it  is  the  only  instrument. 

A  further  statement  in  the  Confession  of  Faith,  chap.  xi.  §  4: 
u  God  did,  from  all  eternity,  decree  to  justify  all  the  elect;  .  .  . 
nevertheless,  they  are  not  justified  until  the  Holy  Spirit  doth,  in 
due  time,  actually  apply  Christ  unto  them." 


626  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER   II. 

OF    THE    TERM   AND    IDEA:    JUSTIFY  —  JUSTIFICATION;    THE    GENERAL 
AND    SCRIPTURAL    SENSE. 


1.  The  general  term  dixaiotfvr-q,  righteousness,  means,  (a  ) 
The  righteousness  which  the  law  demands,  holiness.     It  applies 
to  the  internal  state.    It  is,  the  state  of  man  as  corresponding  to 
the  divine  law  —  not  merely  the  outward  relation,  but  also  the 
internal  state.     This  is  not  justification.     But  the  Scriptures 
distinguish  —  (b.)  That  righteousness  which  is  the  ground  of 
our  justification,  not  of  works,  but  of  God,  through  faith:  Rom. 
i.  17;  iii.  21,  22,  26;  iv.  3,  5,  6,  9;  Gal.  iii.  6. 

The  classic  sense  of  diHaio6vvrj  is,  state  of  righteousness,  jus- 
tice (without  reference  to  what  is  due  to  a  personal  God),  whereas 
the  general  Christian  sense  of  the  word  is,  the  state  of  a  man 
corresponding  to  the  divine  will  (or  law). 

AmcLioGvvri  is  the  general  term  for  conformity  to  law:  the 
property  of  those  who  belong  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is, 
their  whole  state  as  conformed  to  the  divine  law;  it  is  sus- 
ceptible of  degrees;  it  also  includes  sanctification.  (That  it  in- 
cludes the  internal  state  as  well  as  the  objective  relation  is  seen 
from  Rom.  ix.  30;  Gal.  v.  5;  Rom.  vi.  16;  xiii.  1  seq.  ;  xiv.  17; 
1  Cor.  i.  30;  Gal.  iii.  21;  Cf.  Gal.  v.  5.) 

Aori£ed$at  ets  8iKato<5vr^v  (Rom.  iv.  3,  5,  6,  9,  22;  Gal.  iii.  6; 
James  ii.  23,  all  from  Gen.  xv.  6)  designates  the  contrast  to  the 
personal  diHaiotivvrj  (that  k^epyoov):  and  means  that  righteousness 
which,  without  merit  of  ours,  is  declared  to  be  ours  by  God,  for 
Christ's  sake. 

2.  The  terms  Sinaiou),  dixai&dis,  are  always  used  of  the  actus 
forensis,  the  declaration  of  righteousness,  whether  made  in  view 
of  the  present  state  or  of  the  future,  of  dmoaotivvr}  rov  S«o£,  or  of 
full  personal  righteousness.     They  set  forth  Justification  in  dis- 
tinction from  Sanctification.     (The  only  exception  is  Rev.  xxii. 
11,  "  He  that  is  righteous,  let  him  be  righteous  still,"  diuaiGo^rca 
ert'j  but  the  best  reading  is,  SiKauotivvrjv  icoiytia'roo  en.     Which- 


THE    KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  527 


ever  be  adopted,  the  variation  shows  that  dixaiGo^'roD  in  the 
sense  of:  let  him  maJce  himself  or  continue  to  be  righteous,  was 
44  intolerable  to  a  Greek  ear.") 

dixaicojiia  is  used  in  both  senses:  as  a  righteous  deed,  Rom. 
v.  18  (  =  r?7?  vitaKorjs,  v.  19);  and  as  a  justifying  act,  Rom.  v.  16 
(where  it  is  opposed  to  Hardupma). 

3.  The  whole  question  about  the  Scriptural  terms  rendered 
"justify,"  "justification"  is  —  do  they  mean,  declare  righteous,  or, 
make  righteous. 

(a.)  In  common  speech,  to  justify  one's  self,  to  justify  God,  etc., 
is  not  —  to  make  just.  "  Ye  are  they  which  justify  yourselves 
before  men  "  (Luke  xvi.  15)  is,  Ye  are  they  which  assert  your 
righteousness  before  men;  "he,  willing  to  justify  himself"  (Luke 
x.  29)  is,  wishing  to  make  it  appear,  to  have  it  declared  and  ad- 
mitted, that  he  had  not  put  an  unnecessary  question. 

(5.)  The  whole  reasoning  of  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and 
the  Galatians  proceeds  on  this  understanding. 

(c.)  It  is  the  concession  of  Biblical  scholars,  that  —  to  use 
Wieseler's  language1  —  "leaving  out  the  contested  passages  (such 
as  Rev.  xxii.  11),  there  is  not  a  passage  in  the  New  Testament, 
where  Sinatovv  means  aught  but  declare." 

Wieseler  says:  "dinatovv  in  the  Septuagint  means  'make 
just'  only  in  Dan.  xii.  3,  Isa.  liii.  11,  Ps.  Ixxiii.  13,  (Sirach  xviii. 
22)."  "  In  Rom.  iii.  20,  '  by  the  deeds  of  the  law  shall  no  flesh 
be  justified  before  Him,'  Gal.  ii.  16  (same  as  Rom.  iii.  20,  omit- 
ting trooTttov  avrov,  and  both  from  Ps.  cxliii.  2,)  and  Gal.  iii.  11, 
'and  that  by  the  law  no  man  is  justified  before  God,'  the 
meaning  cannot  possibly  be,  make,  just." 

"So  too  Sinaiovv  is  declared  to  be  the  same  as  Xoyt6^ffvai  ets 
ZiKcaotivvrjv  in  Rom.  iv.  3,  5,  9,  23,  24;  Gal.  iii.  6;  i.  e.,  justitia 
imputata,  non  infusa." 

"Even  in  James  the  two  phrases  are  used  as  equivalent:  viz. 

diKcaovtiSai  in  James  ii.  21,  24,  25;  and  \oyi6^iijva.-L  si$  dwaiotivvtjr 
in  James  ii.  23." 

1  Galaterbrief,  1859,  pp.  176-204.  He  cites  Clem,  of  Home  in  1  Cor.  ch.  32; 
Chrysostom,  as  so  interpreting  Bom.  viii.  33;  Theodoret,  Kom.  iii.  24,  and  Au- 
gustine, De  Spir.  et  Littera.  c.  16,  "justum  habere,"  though  afterwards  "justum 
facere"  (Cf.  on  this,  Nitzsch,  Theol.  Stud.  u.  Kritik.,  1834,  p.  481ff) 


»p)28  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

"Again  in  1  Cor.  i.  30,  vi.  11,  a.yia.6^  and  rtytd^^rs  are 
named  with  and  distinguished  from  dtxaiodvrjj  and  idiKaiGoSrjze" 

Justification  involves  acquittal  from  all  the  penalty  and 
inheritance  of  all  the  blessings  which  come  under  the  law. 


CHAPTEK   III. 


Justification  (SiHai&ti-iS)  involves  a  righteousness  (S 
as  its  ground. 

This  is  the  reasoning  of  Paul  in  Eomans  and  Galatians. 
That  it  does  so  is  evident  : 

1.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,    (a.)  If  justification  be  not  mere 
pardon;  (&.)  if  the  believer  is  declared  just  and  admitted  to  the 
favor  of  a  holy  God;  (c.)  if  God  is  a  moral  Governor,  having 
supreme  regard  to  holiness  as  the  end  of  the  law;  (d)  if  no  one 
can  be  saved  unless  as  righteous  in  God's  sight. 

2.  From  Scripture.     If  it  is  not  so,  there  is  no  significance 
in  the  term  dmcaovv,  the  Scripture  need  only  have  said  "pardon." 
Rom.  x.  4;  Phil.  iii.  9;  Rom.  iv.  6;  2  Cor.  v.  21;  Rom.  v.  18,  19; 
Rom.  iii.  26. 

"  God  will  not  justify  without  a  righteousness,  nor  without 
a  righteousness  which  does  honor  to  his  law  and  sets  its  author- 
ity high  in  the  sight  of  the  universe  "  (Dr.  Richards,  p.  390) 


CHAPTER    IV. 

This  righteousness  which  is  the  ground  of  justification  is  not 
that  of  the  sinner,  personally  fulfilling  the  demands  of  the  law. 
It  is  not  a  legal  justification,  by  which  each  is  treated  according 
to  his  personal  deserts — not  a  legal  justification  in  the  sense  of 
distributive  justice. 

1.  It  cannot  be  so,  on  account  of  the  sinner's  moral  state. 
(a.)  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  in  a  sinful,  guilty  condition,  liable 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          520 

to  the  just  condemnation  of  the  law.  All  men  know  this.  (6.)  If 
he  should  repent,  he  could  not  wipe  out  the  past,  the  condemna- 
tion remains,  (c.)  So  great  is  the  power  of  sin  in  him  that  he 
lies  morally  unable  to  turn, — his  natural  ability  does  not  avail 
for  this,  on  account  of  the  strengtn  and  power  of  sin.  (d.)  God 
cannot  consistently  merely  pardon,  (c.)  Men  cannot  justify 
themselves  by  any  denial  of  guilt.  God  accuses  them,  and 
God's  law  demands  perfect  holiness  of  them,  (y.)  Nor  can 
man's  faith,  as  evangelical  obedience,  be  taken,  on  lower  terms 
than  those  which  demanded  obedience  in  full.  For  if  so,  the 
obedience  would  still  be  our  righteousness. 

Man  is  in  such  a  state,  then,  that  he  cannot  merit  heaven  by 
the  deeds  of  the  law.  (Even  Pelagius  could  say,  "  lex  ita  mittit 
ad  regnuin  coelorum  ut  evangelium,"  only  upon  the  understand- 
ing that  the  works  of  the  law  were  external  works.) 

2.  The  Scripture  declares  that  the  personal  righteousness  of 
men  cannot  be  the  ground  of  their  justification.  The  Law  is 
always  the  same,  always  binding  in  its  full  extent.  "  All  have 
sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God."  (a.)  The  Scripture 
declares  that  all  are  under  condemnation,  (b.)  The  "works  of 
the  law  "  of  which  the  Apostle  speaks  are,  the  whole  obedience 
which  the  law  requires.  They  are  contrasted  with  justification 
by  faith  alone,  and  not  with  mere  legal  performances,  (c.)  Ex- 
press statements  of  Scripture:  Rom.  iii.  20,  28;  Titus  iii.  5,  7; 
Eph.  ii.  8;  Rom.  iii.  24;  Rom.  iv.  5,  6,  7;  Phil.  iii.  9;  Gal.  iii.  10, 
22;  Rom.  xi.  6. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    GROUND   OF   JUSTIFICATION. 

Our  justification  can  rest  only  upon  one  of  two  grounds. 
Ultimately,  there  are  only  two  religions:  that  of  works  and  that 
of  faith  in  Christ. 

The  ground  of  justification  must  be  a  righteousness.  It  can- 
not  be  ours.  Where  and  what  is  it  ? 


530  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Or:  There  must  be  a  meritorious  ground,  under  God's  moral 
government,  for  our  justification.  It  cannot  be  our  merits. 
Whose  merits,  then  ? 

Or:  Justification  is  a  procedure  under  God's  moral  govern- 
ment, not  of  his  mere  sovereignty.  It  is  not  a  procedure  rest- 
ing on  the  personal  merit  of  the  justified  person.  It  must  be 
something  taken  instead  of  that,  answering  the  same  ends.  That 
something  is — the  Atonement  of  Christ,  his  work  for  us. 

§  1.  Statements  of  Scripture  as  to  the  Ground  of  Justification. 

(a.)  General  Statements. — 

Rom.  v.  18.  "Even  so  through  the  righteousness  of  one 
....  upon  all  men  unto  justification  of  life." 

Rom.  v.  19.  "  So  by  the  obedience  of  one  shall  many  be 
made  righteous." 

Rom.  x.  4  "Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  righteousness  to 
every  one  that  believeth."  (This  is  the  most  decisive  statement 
of  Scripture.) 

2  Cor.  v.  21.  "  For  He  hath  made  Him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who 
knew  no  sin;  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God 
in  Him." 

Phil.  iii.  9.  "  And  be  found  in  Him,  not  having  mine  own 
righteousness,  which  is  of  the  law,  but  that  which  is  through 
the  faith  of  Christ,  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by 
faith." 

(5.)  Justification  is  spoken  of  as  an  imputation. 

Rom.  iv.  6. — "the  blessedness  of  the  man,  unto  whom  God 
imputeth  righteousness  without  works." 

Cf.  Rom.  v.  18,  19,  above. 

Rom.  iv.  5.  "  To  him  that  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  Him 
that  justifieth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted  for  (loyi^srai) 
righteousness." 

The  meaning  of  impute  is  seen  most  distinctly  in  the  usage  of  the 
compound  eMoyeao.  As  in  Philemon,  verse  18,  "if  he  hath  wronged 
thee  in  anything .  . .  rovto  knoi  tXlioyei,)  put  that  on  my  account." 
So,  Rom.  v.  13,  "  but  sin  is  not  imputed  (kXXoyeiTat)  when  there 
is  no  law/' 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          531 

"To  impute"  does  not  involve  the  idea  of  a  transfer  of  per- 
sonal righteousness. 

The  imputation  concerns  the  laying  of  our  sins  to  the  account 
of  Christ  as  well  as  of  his  righteousness  to  our  account. 

(c.)  Justification  is  spoken  of  as  the  result  of  Christ's  obedience. 

(The  distinction  sometimes  made  between  his  active  and  pas- 
sive obedience  is  not  to  be  commended.  It  is  said,  that  by  his 
active  obedience  Christ  satisfied  the  demands  of  the  law  for  holi- 
ness; and  by  his  passive,  its  demands  for  suffering.  This  dis- 
tinction has  not  a  Scriptural  basis.  The  obedience  of  Christ's 
whole  life,  all  that  belongs  to  his  work,  is  imputed,  reckoned  to 
our  account  for  righteousness.  It  is  thus  that  we  "become  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  Him."} 

§  2.  How  Christ  can  be  the  Ground  of  our  Justification. 

1.  We  are  justified  by  what  He  did  in,  and  in  view  of,  a  con- 
stituted relationship  to  us.1 

2.  The  doctrine  of  union  with  Christ  is  fundamental  as  to 
the  mode  in  which  He  can  be  the  ground  of  our  justification. 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Vital  or  Mystical  Union.— Larg.  Cat.,  Q.  66: 
"The  union  which  the  elect  have  with  Christ  is  the  work  of 
God's  grace,  whereby  they  are  spiritually  and  mystically,  yet 
really  and  inseparably,  joined  to  Christ  as  their  head  and  hus- 
band; which  is  done  in  their  effectual  calling." 

Short.  Cat,  Q.  30.  "The  Spirit  applieth  to  us  the  redemption 
purchased  by  Christ,  by  working  faith  in  us,  and  thereby  uniting 
us  to  Christ  in  our  effectual  calling." 

This  is  the  mystical  union  in  the Calvinistic  sense;  it  is  found 
similarly  expressed  in  other  Confessions  of  the  Keformation.  It 
is  something  real,  and  not  a  mere  figure;  as  real  as  the  union 
between  the  branch  and  the  vine.  Though  the  branch  and  the 
vine  be  only  a  figure,  yet  the  fact  illustrated  by  the  figure  is 
not  figurative. 

The  discussion  proposed  will  state,  I.  The  Scriptural  Proof, 
II.  The  Proof  derivable  from  other  Doctrines  and  Analogies, 

1  This  relationship  is  involved  in  a  divine  plan  and  is  sometimes  calkx?  «ti« 
covenant  of  redemption.*' 


532  CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY. 

III.  The  Nature  of  this  Union,  IV.  The  Difference  between 
the  Calvinistic  and  other  Modes  of  Viewing  this  Union. 

L— The  Scriptural  Proof. 

The  term  "  mystical,"  by  which  this  union  is  denoted,  is  from 
Eph.  v.  32.  "  This  is  a  great  mystery :  but  I  speak  concerning 
Christ  and  the  church."  Verse  31  clo'ses  with  "  and  they  two 
[husband  and  wife]  shall  be  one  flesh,"  and  then  follows  the 
above,  declaring  that  the  union  between  Christ  and  his  church 
is  as  close,  as  intimate  as  that  between  husband  and  wife;  that 
the  union  between  husband  and  wife  is  but  the  image,  the  lower 
realization,  of  the  union  between  Christ  and  his  people. 

John  vi.  56.  "  He  that  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drinketh  my 
blood,  dwelleth  in  me,  and  I  in  him."  The  reference  is  not  to 
the  sacrament  to  be  instituted.  The  meaning  is  more  than 
sacramental,  viz.,  real. 

John  xiv.  23.  "  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will  keep  my  words ; 
and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will  come  unto  him,  and 
make  our  abode  with  him." 

John  xvii.  22,  23.  "And  the  glory  which  thou  gavest  me  I 
have  given  them ;  that  they  may  be  one,  even  as  we  are  one :  I  in 
them,  and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one." 
— The  union  between  Christ  and  his  people  is  like  that  between 
Christ  and  the  Father.  If  the  real  union  between  Christ  and 
his  followers  is  denied,  then  that  between  Christ  and  the  Father 
must  be  denied  also. 

1  John  ii.  5.  "  But  whoso  keepeth  his  word,  in  him  verily 
is  the  love  of  God  perfected:  hereby  know  we  that  we  are  in 
Him."  Verse  6 :  "  He  that  saith  he  abideth  in  Him  ought  himself 
also  so  to  walk,  even  as  He  walked." 

1  John  iv.  12.  "  If  we  love  one  another,  God  dwelleth  in 
us,  and  his  love  is  perfected  in  us." 

The  assumption  of  our  nature  is  also  part  of  the  proof.  John 
i.  14:  "  The  word  was  made  flesh." 

Paul,  as  well  as  John,  sets  forth  the  mystical  union. 

Eph.  v.  23-32,  referred  to  above. 

Rom.  viii.  10.  "  And  if  Christ  be  in  you,  the  body  is  dead  be- 
cause of  sin;  but  the  Spirit  is  life  because  of  righteousness."  (It 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          533 

is  also  shown,  from  the  context  here,  that  the  union  with  Christ 
is  mediated  by  the  Spirit:  verse  9,  "if  any  man  have  not  the 
Spirit  of  Christ"— verse  11:  "But  if  the  Spirit  of  Him  that 
raised  up  Jesus  from  the  dead  dwell  in  you.") 

Col.  i.  27 — "  what  is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  this  mystery 
among  the  Gentiles;  which  is  Christ  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory.'' 

Eph.  iii.  17.  "That  Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by 
faith." 

Gal.  iii.  27.  "  For  as  many  of  you  as  have  been  baptized 
into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ." 

1  Cor.  vi.  14,  15.     "And  God  hath  both  raised  up  the  Lord, 
and  will  also  raise  up  us  by  his  own  power.     Know  ye  not  that 
your  bodies  are  the  members  of  Christ  ?  "     Also,  v.  17 :  "  But  he 
that  is  joined  unto  the  Lord  is  one  spirit." 

There  may  also  be  cited: 

2  Peter  i.  4:  "that  by  these  ye  might  be  (rerrjtiSe)  partakers 
of  the  divine  nature." 

The  figure  of  the  branch  and  the  vine,  John  xv. 

Results  from  the  Scriptural  Evidence. 

(a.)  As  a  matter  of  fact  and  reality,  there  is  as  truly  a  union 
between  Christ  and  his  followers,  as  between  Christ  and  the 
Father,  the  husband  arid  the  wife,  the  trunk  and  the  branches. 

(6.)  This  union  is  not  sacramental  but  spiritual:  not  imme- 
diate, but  through  and  by  the  Holy  Spirit  uniting  us  to  Christ 
our  head.  This  makes  the  distinction  between  the  Calvinistic 
view  and  that  of  the  mystics  and  of  the  Sacramentarians. 

(c.)  The  union  extends  to  the  body,  so  far  as  this — that  through 
the  life-giving  Spirit,  we,  like  Christ,  are  to  be  raised  from  the 
dead :  because  He  lives  we  shall  live  also. 

(d.)  This  union  is  on  the  basis  of  the  covenant  of  grace,  and 
through  it  the  blessings  of  that  covenant  are  imparted  to  us. 

(e.)  The  life  given  by  this  union  is  none  other  than  the  life 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  imparts — yet  it  is  a  life,  not  of  mere  gen 
eral  divine  influence,  but  in  union  with  Christ. 

(/.)  This  life  is  given  through  faith  as  the  instrument  of 
our  justification;  it  is  a  life  not  excluding,  but  including 
justification. 


534  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

II. — Proof  from  other  sources  of  doctrine  and  analogy. 

(<?.)  From  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  faith  alone.  In 
our  effectual  calling,  by  the  Spirit  through  faith,  we  are 
justified;  i.  e.,  on  the  ground  of  what  Christ  has  done,  we  are  ac« 
cepted  in  Him,  "elect  in  Christ"  There  must  then  be  some 
peculiar  bond  or  tie,  on  the  ground  of  which  we  can  be  thus 
received  and  accepted  in  another. 

(6.)  From  the  parallel  between  our  death  in  Adam  and  our 
life  in  Christ:  Kom.  v.  12  seq.  The  race  is  one  in  Adam,  and 
hence  could  sin  in  him  and  fall  with  him;  human  nature  be- 
came corrupt  in  him.  We  are  condemned  thereby:  the  natural 
union  with  Adam  is  the  ground  of  this  procedure.  In  like  man- 
ner, the  spiritual  union  with  Christ  is  the  basis  of  our  being 
accepted,  and  justified  in  him. 

(c.)  From  the  truth  of  the  intimate,  secret,  unseen,  yet  real 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  regeneration — in  our  effectual 
calling,  uniting  us  to  Christ  by  these  sacred  influences,  reinstat- 
ing us  in  the  moral  image  of  God.  These  influences  are  confess- 
edly mysterious;  they  are  the  bond  of  our  union  with  Christ. 
This  union  is  at  the  ground  of  regeneration  and  justification. 

(d)  From  the  nature  of  love  to  Christ,  faith  in  Christ,  im- 
plying the  closest  personal  relationship  between  Christ  and 
ourselves — a  union. 

(e.)  From  the  analogy  of  other  works  of  God,  and  facts  in 
our  other  relations. 

Through  al.  rature,  if  we  are  theists,  we  believe  in  a  per- 
petual presence  of  God,  everywhere,  not  merely  in  power,  but  in 
reality.  Through  all  second  causes  the  great  First  Cause  is  ever 
at  work.  Acts  xvii.  28. 

In  each  of  the  several  tribes  of  creation  there  is  a  special, 
common  character,  whereby  the  tribe  is  made  one,  though  also 
each  individual  is  distinct  from  every  other.  There  is  a  mystery 
and  a  fact  here.  The  common  nature  and  descent  from  one  pair 
have  a  background  of  mysterious  union,  which  is  a  background 
of  fact  also. 

It  is  natural  then  to  conclude  from  analogy,  that  in  the  new 
and  higher  kingdom  of  God's  grace,  for  which  all  other  things 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          535 

were  made,  there  would  be  a  real  union  in  one  head.  This  is 
given  us  in  our  union  with  Christ,  through  the  influence  of  the 
gracious  Spirit. 

Thus,  through  the  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  are  led  tc 
faith  in  Christ:  to  trust  in  Him;  and  in  consequence  of  that  we 
become  partakers  of  all  that  Christ  has  done  for  us — are  justified, 
{.  e.,  are  both  pardoned  and  adopted. 

Now,  as  in  the  family  there  is  a  union  of  members,  parents 
and  children,  so  that  all  have  the  same  liabilities,  on  the  ground 
of  the  union ;  as  in  the  race  having  its  headship  in  Adam  there 
is  a  union,  with  the  same  liabilities;  so  in  our  union  to  Christ 
through  love  and  faith,  a  like  union  is  implied. 

III. — The  nature  of  this  union:  (rather  negatively  than 
positively). 

A  general  union  with  God  is  at  the  basis:  Acts  xvii.  28. 

It  involves  also  a  union  with  the  whole  Trinity :  John  xiv.  23; 
xvii.  23;  xvii.  21. 

(a.)  The  union  is  not  physical  but  spiritual. 

(b.)  It  is  not  through  the  sacraments,  but  by  the  Spirit, 
through  faith. 

(c.)  Not  that  the  substance  of  Christ  passes  over  into  us,  so 
that  our  natures  are  made  divine  with  his  divinity  (Cf.  Calvin's 
Instit.  III.  xi.  10). 

(d.)  Not  that  his  theanthropic  life,  considered  as  his  specific 
substance,  or  nature,  is  infused  into  us. 

(e.)  But,  it  is  a  vital,  personal  union: — mystical,  because  it 
cannot  be  further  defined  than  as  a  fact,  and  by  the  consequent 
benefits.  But  though  mystical,  yet  real. 

(f.)  Hence  it  is  more  than 

(a1.)  Union  of  affection  and  aim.  This  is  included,  but  this 
is  the  consequence  of  the  union  and  not  the  union  itself. 

(61.)  Than  a  merely  external,  constituted,  arbitrary  relation 
— than  a  mere  union  of  compact;  though  this  is  also  included. 
Just  as  with  Adam  the  moral  headship  is  based  on  the  physical, 
the  covenant  is  carried  out  through  the  natural  relationship,  so 
is  the  covenant  of  grace  through  this  spiritual  union. 

(a.)  The  effect  of  faith  in  uniting  to  Christ  is  thus  stated  by 


03  G  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Augustine  (Serrn.  144):  "Qui  ergo  in  Christum  credit,  credendo 
in  Christum,  venit  in  eum  Christus,  et  quodocmmodo  unitur  in 
eurri,  et  membrum  in  corpore  ejus  efficitur."  (The  credere  in 
Christum  he  shows  to  be  very  different  from,  credere  ipsum  esse 
Christum,  and,  credere  de  Clirislo, — devils  may  do  this).  Further : 
"  Ille  enim  credit  in  Christum,  qui  et  sperat  in  Christum  et  dili- 
git  Christum.  Nam  si  n'dem  habet  sine  spe  ac  sine  dilectioiie, 
Christum  esse  credit,  non  in  Christum  credit." 

IV. — Classification  and  criticism  of  opinions  as  to  the  nature 
of  our  relation  to  Christ. 

The  great  difference  of  theological  systems  comes  out  here. 
Since  Christianity  is  redemption  through  Christ,  our  mode  of 
conceiving  that  will  determine  the  character  of  our  whole  the- 
ological system. 

1.  The  humanitarian  (Socinian)  view.     Christ  is  an  example 
and  a  teacher.     There  is  no  other  relationship  than  there  is  be- 
tween us  and  other  examples  and  teachers,  excepting  that  He 
is  the  highest  and  best.     There  is  between  Him  and  us  no  living 
bond  or  tie.     (Socinus  admits  that  Christ  confers  immortality.) 
This  is  a  bare,  ethical,  natural  system,  with  no  supernatural 
elements. 

2.  The  other  extreme  is,  Transubstantiation :  through  the 
sacraments,  by  transubstantiation  of  the  elements  of  bread  and 
wine,  the  very  body  and  blood  of  Christ  are  received.     (This 
view  has  a  greatly  modified  form  in  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of 
Con  substantiation . ) 

3.  The    Sacramental    Theory    (particularly    of   the    Oxford 
School).     The   Sacraments   are   an   extension   of  the   Incarna- 
tion, and  vehicles  of  grace.     Through  the  Sacraments  we  re- 
ceive, not  the  very  body  and  blood,  but  the  theanthropic  life 
of  Christ.     The  Holy  Spirit  works  in  the  bestowal  of  this  life, 
but — works  through  the  Sacraments.     There  is  a  real,  spiritual 
reception  of  the  very  substance  of  the  Logos.     (See  Mercersb 
Rev.,  Oct.  1854). 

4.  The  Spiritual  Life  Theory.     This  drops  the  Sacraments 
We  receive  rrom  Christ  a  new,  spiritual  life;  the  communica 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  537 

tion  of  such  a  life  is  the  great  end  of  the  Incarnation.  The 
Atonement  is  merged  in  the  Incarnation ;  the  object  of  the  In- 
carnation is  the  giving  of  life,  rather  than  making  atonement 
(Schleiermacher,  Coleridge). 

5.  The  general  Calvinistic  view.     The  union  with  Christ  is 
mediated  by  his  Spirit  (it  is  not  direct,  not  through  sacraments), 
whence  we  are  both  renewed  and  justified.     The  great  fact  of 
objective  Christianity  is,  Incarnation  in   order  to  Atonement: 
the  great  fact  of  subjective  Christianity  is,  Union  with  Christ, 
whereby  we  receive  the  Atonement.     The  Sacraments  are  ex- 
pressions, not  vehicles  of  grace. 

Our  new  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  The  Incarnation 
has  the  same  relation  to  the  new  life  that  Creation  has  to  the 
old.  Yet  this  new  life  is  by  the  distinct  operation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  We  stand  in  as  close  a  relation  to  the  second  as  to  the 
first  Adam — though  it  be  spiritual  and  not  natural. 

Calvin  (Works,  Brunswick  ed.,  1870,  vol.  ix.  p.  30,  on  the  De- 
fence of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Sacraments)  says :  "  The  flesh  of  Christ 
is  life-bringing.  .  .  .  We  coalesce  with  Christ  in  a  sacred  unity,  and 
that  same  flesh  (caro)  breathes  life  into  us.  ...  by  a  secret  virtue 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  have,  implanted  into  the  body  of  Christ,  a 
common  life  with  Him.  For  from  the  hidden  fountain  of  Deity, 
life  is  wonderfully  infused  into  the  flesh  of  Christ,  that  thence 
it  might  flow  to  us " 

6.  The  Governmental  Theory.     This  denies  the  reality  of 
such  union  with  Christ,  takes  the  expressions  of  Scripture  re- 
lating to  it  as  metaphors,  and  denies  also  the  reality  of  justifi- 
cation on  this  basis.     We  become  like  Christ  by  choosing  the 
same  end  that  He  did.     His  atonement  removed  the  obstacles, 
so  that  we  can  now  go  directly  to  God.     Justification  is  pardon 
only,  for  Christ's  sake:  or,  if  more,  we  are  justified  on  the  ground 
of  our  inherent  state  of  love,  or,  because  it  is  foreseen  by  God 
that  we  shall  become  wholly  just  by  and  by.     Christ  presents 
to  us  an  exhibition  of  God's  hatred  of  sin  and  love  of  holiness  ; 
and  this  moves  us  to  be  and  do  right  more  than  anything  else. 

1  [If  any  one  hesitates  over  this  expression,  there  may  perhaps  be  substituted 
for  the  term  "flesh  "  the  term  "  humanity,"  with  no  detriment  to  the  force  of  the 
argument] 


538  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

All  this  is  true  enough  as  far  as  it  goes.  But  it  condemns 
as  a  figment,  as  visionary  and  unreal,  the  grand  fact  of  personal, 
vital  union  with  Christ,  through  faith,  as  the  basis  of  our  justi- 
fication, and  the  beginning  of  our  new  life. 

In  fine  and  sum — the  question  being,  How  can  the  lost  favor 
of  God  be  restored  ? — 

The  first  theory  says:  It  is  enough  for  God  to  come  and  help 
us  somewhat. 

The  second  says :  We  are  restored  by  partaking  of  Christ's 
very  flesh  and  blood. 

The  third  says:  We  are  restored  by  partaking  of  the  divine 
humanity — though  not  of  the  literal  flesh  and  blood — through 
the  Sacraments. 

The  fourth :  by  partaking  of  the  life  of  Christ,  not  necessarily 
through  the  Sacraments. 

The  fifth :  only  through  justification  and  regeneration,  effected 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  uniting  us  to  Christ. 

The  sixth:  through  justification,  i.  e.,  pardon,  not  including 
a  real  union  with  Christ,  to  produce  effects,  influences  on  us. 

§  3.  In  what  Way  does  what  Christ  has  done  avail  to  the  Believer 

through  this  Union,  for  his  Justification as  a  Righteousness? 

How  does  it  avail  ? 

1.  Not  legal  justification  in  the  sense  of  distributive  justice 

as  defined Not  under  the  law  in  the  restricted  usage 

that  it  demands  works  as  the  condition  of  life.     "  The  ungodly  " 
are  justified  ("  Legal  justification  occurs  when  one  accused  is 
vindicated  by  showing  either  that  he  did  not  do  the  act  or  had 
a  right  to  do  it."     Barnes,  p.  74). 

Justification  is  contrasted  with  this  expressly.  The  law 
requires  uniform  obedience:  Rom.  iii.  21.  The  law,  of  itself, 
has  no  provision  for  justification.  Not  as  excluding  all  right- 
eousness or  merits,  as  the  ground  of  justification.  Proved  in 
Chap.  III. 

2.  Not  a  transfer  of  personal  righteousness — Christ's  right- 
ousness  to  the  believer:  the  believer  and  Christ  being  consid 
ered  as  separate. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          539 

3.  But  that  Christ  having  satisfied  the  end  of  the  law  for 
righteousness,  in  man's  behalf  (made  an  atonement  as  already 
explained)  i.  e.,  secured  holiness,  we,  through  union  with  Him. 
become  partakers  of  all  the  benefits  of  his  work.     Here  is  the 
mystery  of  the  work. 

4.  Though  the  demands  of  distributive  justice  are  not  di- 
rectly met  (i.  e.,  as  the  ultimate  point  of  view  in  our  justifica- 
tion *),  yet  the   end  to  be  gained  by  distributive  justice,  i.  e., 
the  maintenance  of  holiness,  is  secured. 

Considered  in  themselves,   out  of  Christ,   men   are  guilty, 
deserving  condemnation. 

5.  For  Christ's  sake — because  we  are  one  with  Him — we  are 
treated  "as  if"  righteous:  but  we  could  not  be  so  treated  un- 
less there  were  in  Christ  a  sufficient  ground  for  this  "as  if": 
his  merits. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   INSTRUMENTAL   CAUSE   OF   JUSTIFICATION. 

§  1.  Faith,  and  Faith  alone. 

The  Roman  Catholic  view  is  that  justification  is  through 
the  sacraments  as  well,  i.  e.,  by  baptism  and  by  penance 
as  restoring  the  forfeited  grace  of  baptism.  The  Arminian 
view:  the  means  of  justification  is  faith  as  including  love 
and  future  holiness.  God  perceives,  in  the  act  of  faith,  love 
and  holiness  following,  and  declares  the  person  just,  not  on 
the  ground  of  Christ's  merit,  but  of  the  foreseen  merits  of 
the  believer. 

The  Scriptures  declare  faith  to  be  the  only  act  of  the  soul  on 
which  justification  is  conditioned.  Rom.  i.  16;  v.  1;  Gal.  ii.  16; 

1  If  tenpence  is  due  a  man  and  he  is  paid  a  dollar,  the  tenpence  is  more  than 
•satisfied.  Christ's  work  more  than  satisfies  distributive  justice,  while  directly  and 
in  the  strictest  sense,  it  does  not  and  cannot  "satisfy"  it.  Its  end  is  more  fullj 
reached— holiness  is  made  supreme  and  triumphant. 


640  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

Phil.  iii.  9;  John  iii.  18  asserts  that  faith  is  necessary  to  the  ob 
taining  eternal  life. 

§  2.   The  Idea  of  Faith. 

(a.)  In  a  loose  popular  sense,  Faith  is  belief  in  any  truth  on 
any  ground. 

(&.)  In  a  general  and  somewhat  abstract  sense,  it  is  belief  in 
what  is  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  senses. 

(c.)  It  is  belief,  on  the  ground  of  testimony,  in  what  we  have 
not  ourselves  seen  or  known — belief  on  the  ground  of  authority. 
The  same  truth  may  be  known  in  different  ways — by  reason 
and  by  testimony  too,  e.  g.,  immortality. 

(d.)  More  particularly,  in  a  general  Scriptural  usage,  Faith 
is  trusting  in  God's  testimony — receiving  all  that  God  has  re- 
vealed to  us.  Roman  Catholics  say:  It  is  belief  in  God's  testi- 
mony, as  witnessed  by  the  church:  it  merits  grace,  of  congruity, 
through  the  sacraments;  being  "formed"  by  love,  it  is  directly 
meritorious  and  accumulates  merits. 

(e.)  The  special  sense  of  Faith,  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used 
in  the  doctrine  of  justification  is,  the  receiving,  resting  in,  and 
trusting  upon  Christ  Not  mere  abstract  truth,  but  Christ  is  its 
object.  It  is  not  merely  relying  upon  what  God  has  testified  in 
regard  to  all  truth,  but  trusting  in  and  receiving  Christ  as  our 
Saviour — relying  upon  Him. 

As  such — 

1.  It  is  an  act  of  the  whole  soul — not  of  the  intellect,  nor 
will,  nor  sensibilities,  alone,  but  of  all  combined.     The  whole 
soul  goes  out  in  the  act  of  faith  in  Christ.     Faith  is  one  of  the 
most  concrete  of  acts,  yet  in  direct  consciousness  is  an  act  per 
fectly  simple. 

2.  It  also  includes  in  germ  all  other  graces.     It  does  this 
because  it  is  an  energy  of  the  whole  mind.     "  Worketh  by  love," 
Gal.  v.   6.     It  involves  repentance.     "Show  faith  by  works,' 
James  ii.  18. 

3.  It  is  itself  a  holy  act,  involving  trust  and  love,  yet  it  is 
not  as  holy  that  it  is  the  means  of  justification,  but  as  being 
the  act  in  which  we  receive  Christ. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.         541 

4.  Thus  it  is  properly  called  the  instrumental  cause  of  justi- 
fication. The  meritorious  ground  is  Christ.  Faith  is  not  the 
highest  of  the  virtues,  but  love  is.  Justification  is  not  without 
works,  yet  not  by  works, — not  without  love,  yet  not  by  love, 
—not  without  assent,  yet  not  as  though  the  assent  were 
meritorious. 

§  3.  Some  Questions  in  regard  to  Faith. 

I. — Does  faith  always  involve  explicit,  in  distinction  from 
implicit,  knowledge?  Must  there  always  be  a  full  and  defined 
knowledge  of  what  Christ  is  ? 

Some  degree  of  knowledge  is  involved  in  every  conscious  act 
of  faith.  This  is  essential  to  it.  Roman  Catholics  contend  that 
faith  may  be  implicit  to  a  large  extent,  i.  e.,  a  man  may  have 
saving  faith  without  knowing  specially  anything  about  the  work 
of  Christ.  Faith  may  be  simply  general  trust  in  God  and  be- 
lief in  the  Bible — and  especially  in  the  church.  Thus  a  man 
may  say  he  believes  what  the  church  says,  even  if  he  does  not 
know  what  that  is,  and  he  is  to  be  considered  as  having  faith  in 
what  the  church  holds. 

But  (1)  We  really  assent  only  so  far  as  we  know  the  meaning 
of  the  statement  which  we  accept.  We  may  be  ready  to  receive 
whatever  else  can  be  shown  to  rest  upon  the  same  authority. 
(2)  The  Scriptures  interchange  faith  and  knowledge. 

II. — Whether  the  act  of  faith  be  a  moral  or  intellectual  act? 
The  question  here  is  between  those  who  affirm  that  it  is  solely 
intellectual,  and  those  who  affirm  that  it  involves  the  affections 
and  the  will  (in  part)  as  well  as  the  intellect. 

(1)  It  is  an  act  of  the  soul  in  respect  to  moral  and  religious 
truth,  accepting  it,  trusting  it,  and  resting  in  it.  If  so,  it  must 
have  a  moral  character.  It  is  not  mere  perception,  but  involves 
assent.  (2)  Hence,  it  cannot  be  exercised  without  the  affections. 
There  is  no  possible  element  of  trust  entering  into  an  act  where 
the  affections  are  not  involved.  It  involves  something  of  love. 
It  is  giving  the  soul  to  that  which  is  presented.  (3)  A  mere 
traditional  or  historical  faith  cannot  be  enough.  As  an  intel« 
lectual  act,  it  would  be  historical  faith  or  receiving  what  came 


542  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

down  in  the  way  of  tradition.  But  we  have  to  do  here  with 
something  more  than  historical  evidence.  There  is  the  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  assent  of  the  soul  to  divine  truth.  The 
Scriptures  speak  of  those  who  believe,  as  taught  of  the  Spirit. 
All  the  effects  of  faith  are  such  as  to  show  it  to  have  a  moral 
character  as  well  as  historical.  They  impose  an  obligation  in 
respect  to  it,  and  this  implies  a  moral,  spiritual  character  belong- 
ing to  it.  Unbelief  would  not  be  a  sin  unless  it  involved  that 
which  is  immoral. 

III. — (Involved  in  the  preceding.)  Does  trust  belong  tc 
faith  ?  This  is  denied  by  Romanists. 

(1)  Not,  as  applied  to  abstract  doctrines,  e.  g.,  the  divinity  of 
Christ.  (2)  But  saving  faith  rests  ultimately  in  persons,  in  God, 
in  Christ.  Most  specifically,  it  is  a  direct  reliance  on  Christ  for 
salvation. 

IV. — Does  faith  involve  the  assurance  of  personal  salvation  ? 
Does  such  assurance  belong  to  the  essence  of  faith, — to  the  es- 
sence in  distinction  from  the  products  of  faith  ? 

Sir  Wm.  Hamilton  (Discussions,  p.  493),  arguing  against  Arch- 
deacon Hare  on  Luther's  doctrines,  has  affirmed  very  boldly  that 
the  doctrine  of  assurance — the  feeling  certain  that  God  is  propi- 
tious to  me — that  my  sins  are  forgiven,  was  long  held  by  the 
Protestant  communities  to  be  the  criterion  of  a  saving  faith. 
Luther  says,  "He  who  hath  not  assurance  spews  faith  out,"  and 
Melancthon  makes  it  a  distinction  between  Christianity  and 
heathenism.  Hamilton  further  says  that  this  position  was  main- 
tained by  Calvin,  by  Arminius,  and  by  all  the  Protestant  Con- 
fessions down  to  the  Westminster,  when  assurance  was  for  the 
first  time  declared  to  be  not  of  the  essence  of  faith.  He  adda 
that  then  one  of  the  great  distinctions  between  Protestants  and 
Roman  Catholics  was  obliterated.  These  statements  show  that 
a  great  philosopher  may  be  mistaken  in  departments  where  he 
is  not  well  acquainted.  By  some  of  the  earlier  Reformers,  as  by 
Luther,  it  was  undoubtedly  asserted  that  faith  involves  assurance, 
and  this  was  urged  in  part  against  the  Roman  Catholic  view, 
which  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  no  one  can  be  assured  of  his 
salvation  in  this  life,  because  salvation  is  dependent  upon  sancti- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          543 

fication ;  in  opposition  to  which  Protestants  argued  that  in  faith 
itself  was  the  ground  and  assurance  of  our  salvation,  and  that 
we  might  have  from  the  simple  act  of  faith  assurance  of  personal 
salvation.  Calvin  speaks  guardedly.  He  says  that  there  are 
doubts  and  difficulties,  and  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  as- 
surance  in  order  to  be  a  believer.  Even  the  Synod  of  Dort  did 
not  include  this  among  its  decrees.  It  is  not  explicitly  asserted 
in  any  of  the  Reformed  Confessions,  except  in  the  Heidelberg 
Catechism, — not  in  the  French,  nor  in  that  of  Basel,  nor  in  the 
Helvetic.  The  Westminster  Confession,  c.  xviii.  §  3,  says,  "This 
infallible  assurance  doth  not  so  belong  to  the  essence  of  faith, 
but  that  a  true  believer  may  wait  long,  and  conflict  with  many 
difficulties  before  he  be  partaker  of  it."  Turretine  draws  the  dis- 
tinction clearly.  It  is  said  to  be  not  the  essence  of  faith  but  its 
ripest  product.  This  doctrine  of  assurance  has  been  revived  in 
Switzerland  through  Dr.  Malan,  whose  tract  has  been  published 
by  the  Reformed  Dutch  Board.  He  makes  assurance  to  be  not 
merely  necessary  to  gospel  peace,  but  to  belong  to  faith,  so  that  one 
cannot  have  faith  without  having  assurance  of  faith.  President 
Edwards  met  this  point  in  a  letter  to  Ebenezer  Erskine  of  Scot- 
land, where  the  controversy  had  been  started  in  connection  with 
the  publication  of  the  "  Marrow  of  Divinity."  He  puts  it  sub- 
stantially in  this  form :  "  Faith  is  belief,  in  its  general  sense,  of 
what  God  has  revealed  to  us  in  the  gospel.  He  has  revealed  to 
us  that  all  who  beliere  will  be  saved,  and  we  must  believe  that 
on  the  ground  of  the  gospel  assertion:  but  He  has  not  revealed 
to  us  in  the  gospel  that  I,  Jonathan  Edwards,  of  Northampton, 
shall  be  saved,  and  therefore  that  does  not  belong  to  the  essence 
of  faith.  The  essence  of  faith  consists  in  receiving  what  God 
has  revealed." 

§  4,  Is  Man  responsible  for  his  Belief— I  e.,  for  his  Unbelief? 

Those  who  assert  that  man  is  not  responsible,  do  it  because 
they  hold  that  faith  is  a  merely  intellectual  act,  and  depends  on 
the  amount  of  evidence  which  is  brought  before  the  mind,  so 
that  if  a  man  has  sufficient  evidence,  he  cannot  help  believing! 
and  if  he  has  not,  he  cannot  attain  to  belief.  They  argue  thf 


544  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

question  on  the  ground  of  a  general  definition  of  faith — assent 
to  testimony:  and  say,  where  the  testimony  is  present,  assent  ia 
compelled,  and  where  it  is  not,  assent  is  impossible. 

The  general  position  to  be  taken  in  respect  to  the  matter  is, 
that  man  is  responsible  for  his  unbelief  so  far  as  sin  in  any  form 
or  way  keeps  him  from  believing.  If  there  is  a  want  of  oppor- 
tunity or  of  natural  capacity,  he  is  not  to  be  held  responsible. 
But  so  far  as  any  selfishness,  any  worldliness,  any  pride,  any 
evil  desire,  any  wrong  affection,  keeps  him  from  submitting  to 
the  righteousness  of  God,  just  so  far  he  is  responsible.  This  ia 
applied  as  follows:  (1)  To  the  evidence  for  the  being  of  God. 
Faith,  reliance,  trust  in  the  divine  existence,  is  not  a  merely  in- 
tellectual act;  it  is  an  act  of  the  whole  soul  turning  to  God. 
Wherever  there  is  atheism,  the  fact  shows  that  the  moral  nature 
is  benumbed.  (2)  To  the  evidences  of  Christianity.  These  are 
addressed  partly  to  the  intellect,  but  chiefly  to  man's  moral 
wants,  because  Christianity  presents  itself  as  a  remedy  for  man's 
moral  disorders,  and  all  that  prevents  any  from  receiving  it  is 
the  absence  of  the  sense  of  need  of  salvation.  It  is  a  moral  hin- 
drance. (3)  To  faith  in  Christ.  This  is  essentially  a  moral  act, 
an  act  of  the  whole  soul.  It  is  not  merely  an  act  of  the  intel- 
lect, but  it  is  from  a  conscious  need  of  redemption;  and  that 
which  keeps  any  one  from  trusting  in  Christ  is  his  lack  of  a 
proper  sense  of  his  sinfulness  and  need  of  a  Saviour.  (4)  To  the 
final  condemnation  of  the  sinner.  In  perhaps  almost  all  minds, 
that  which  keeps  from  the  acknowledgment  of  this,  is  the  want 
of  a  proper  sense  of  sin  and  of  its  just  desert.1 

§  5.  Why  is  the  high  Office  assigned  to  Faith  of  being  the  instru- 
mental Cause  of  Justification  ? 

1.  It  is  not   because   faith  is  the   highest  of  the  virtues: 
1  Cor.  xiii.  13. 

2.  It  is  because  faith  is  the  only  way  in   which  man  can 
receive  Christ.     The  act  of  the  soul  trusting  Christ  is  the  only 
mode  in  which  the  soul  can  be  saved.     Faith  is  the  only  con* 

1  Wardlaw,  in  reply  to  Brougham,  has  written  on  the  question,  Is  man  re- 
sponsible for  his  belief?    See  Princ.  Rev.,  vol.  xviii.  p.  53. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  545 

ceivable  act  by  which  the  sinner  can  be  united  to  Christ.  It 
brings  us  to  rest  in  God,  to  renounce  self,  to  turn  from  self  to 
Christ,  and  it  is  the  only  act  of  the  mind  by  which  this  can 
be  achieved.  Both  the  simplicity  and  the  power  of  faith  are 
to  be  taken  into  consideration.1 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    DIFFERENCE    BETWEEN    THE    ROMAN    CATHOLIC    AND    PROTESTANT 
VIEWS    OF    JUSTIFICATION. 

They  agree  in  holding  that  justification  is  the  consequence 
or  result  of  the  sinner's  return  to  God  under  the  influence  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  They  differ  in  their  notion  of  justification,  in 
their  view  of  the  point  at  which  justification  takes  place, 
in  their  view  of  the  nature  of  faith,  of  good  works,  and  of 
works  of  supererogation. 

1.  The  difference  in  the  notion  of  justification.  The  Roman 
Catholic  says,  that  this  includes  not  only  forgiveness  and  adop- 
tion, but  also  sanctification,  that  it  involves  the  internal  change 
of  the  sinner  into  a  just  person — an  infusion  of  divine  justice  as 
the  property  of  the  soul.  Sometimes  they  call  it  a  physical  act. 
This  is  connected  with  their  view  of  the  primitive  endowments 
of  man.  They  hold  that  man  was  endowed  with  all  the  capacities 
of  human  nature,  and  that  in  addition  grace  was  imparted  or 
infused — superadded  to  the  primitive  endowments;  that  by  the 
fall,  superadded,  infused  grace  was  lost;  that  the  object  of  the 
gospel  is  to  restore  that  lost  grace,  and  that  this  is  effected 
through  the  sacraments — baptism,  penance  and  the  Lord's 
Supper.  It  is  restored  substantially — physically — to  man,  and 
it  is  on  account  of  this  restored  grace  that  man  is  justified,  and 
this  grace  includes  faith  and  sanctification.  The  Protestant  view 

i  Faith  in  relation  to  Justification,  Edwards,  ii.  628.  Faith  in  relation  to 
Perseverance,  Ibid.  iii.  510.  Sermons  on  Justification,  Ibid.  iv.  64,  cf.  36,  (N.  Y, 
Edition,  1868). 


646  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is,  that  justification  in  its  essential  notion  is  not  the  making 
just,  but  the  declaring  just,  on  the  ground  of  faith  alone.  It  is 
a  forensic  act,  {.  e.,  an  act  in  the  form  of  a  declaration  before  a 
judicial  tribunal,  and  not  in  its  first  aspect  declarative  of 
character. 

2.  The  difference  as  to  the  point  at  which  justification  occurs. 
They  agree  that  justification  is  grace  "  per  Christum,"  but  the 
Eoman  Catholic  says  that  God  is  moved  by  the  faith,  repent- 
ance, good  purposes,  and  good  works  of  man  to  make  him  just; 
that  God  makes  him  capable  of  doing  good  works,  and  in  pro- 
portion to  the  amount  of  good  works  he  does,  justification  ad- 
vances,   so    that    the    justification    is    gradual,    is    constantly 
increasing,  is  never  completed  until  sanctification  is  complete. 
The  cause  of  justification  is  admitted  to  be  Christ's  merits,  but 
the  necessary  condition  is  man's  acts,  man's  works,  man's  sancti- 
fication.    The  Protestant  view  is  that  justification  is  in  and  by 
a  simple  act  of  faith.     Man  trusts  in  the  pardoning  grace  of  God 
through  Christ,  and  good  works  are  the  fruit  of  that. 

3.  The  question  whether  justification  is  by  faith  alone.     Ro- 
man Catholics  deny  this.     In  doing  this  they  give  a  different 
idea  of  faith.     Faith,  they  say,  is  the  assent  by  which  we  receive 
those  things  which  are  divinely  revealed  and  promised,  espe- 
cially that  the  wicked  are  justified  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the 
redemption  of  Christ.     This  is  necessary  to  justification,  but  is 
not  all  that  is  necessary, — it  must  not  be  found  alone.     The 
Roman  Catholic  ground  is:  (1)  God  is  the  efficient  cause  of  jus- 
tification.    (2)  Christ  is  the  meritorious  ground.     (3)  Inherent 
righteousness,  or  our  sanctified  state,  is  the  formal  cause — the 
necessary  condition  of  it.    (4T)  Merit  of  condignity,  in  repentance, 
penance,   good  works,   is   necessary   to  justification.     (5)   The 
means  by  which  all  this  is  applied  are  the  sacraments  of  the 
church,  especially  baptism.     The  Protestant  view  is,  that  the 
faith  by  which  we  receive  Christ  involves  no  mixture  of  our 
own  works,  that  the  simple  faith  and  trust  is  the  sole  instrument 
of  justification.     In  the  Protestant  view,  justification  is  a  single 
act  of  trust;  in  the  Catholic,  it  is  a  process,  and  a  long  one. 

4.  The  difference  as  to  the  relation  of  good  works  to  justi 


THE    KINGDOM     OP    REDEMPTION.  547 

fication.  They  agree  that  good  works  are  not  to  be  separated 
in  re  from  justification,  but  differ  as  to  their  relation  to  it.  The 
Protestant  view  is,  that  good  works  bring  no  merit  or  desert  in 
respect  to  salvation  or  the  title  to  eternal  life.  In  every  other 
point  of  view  they  insist  upon  good  works,  which  are  the  fruit 
and  consequence  of  justifying  grace.  Roman  Catholics  hold 
that  good  works  bring  an  increase  of  grace,  an  increase  of  title 
to  eternal  life  and  heavenly  felicity,  and  that  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  of  good  works  is  the  strength  of  the  title  to  eter- 
nal life. 

5.  The  difference  as  to  the  so-called  works  of  supererogation. 
Roman  Catholics  hold  that  the  regenerated  may  not  only  keep 
the  commands  of  God  entirely,  but  that  they  may  keep  more, 
— not  only  what  is  enjoined  in  the  law  but  also  the  "  evangeli- 
cal counsels,"  things  recommended  but  not  binding — poverty, 
vows  of  chastity,  etc.  They  may  attain  to  a  higher  moral  per- 
fection and  merit  before  God  by  these  works.  This  is  carried 
out  in  the  whole  system  of  monasticism,  which  has  here  its 
theoretic  root — that  in  it  a  higher  degree  of  religion1  can  be 
practiced.  These  monastic  saints  in  this  way  go  through  life, 
obeying  their  voluntary  vows  and  laying  up  a  treasury  of  merit, 
which  is  committed  by  Christ  to  the  keeping  of  the  church. 
These  are  the  works  of  supererogation,  the  merit  of  which  is 
dispensed  by  the  church  in  dispensations,  etc.,  from  the  treasury 
of  grace  laid  up  from  its  departed  supererogatory  heroes.  The 
general  Protestant  view  is,  that  so  far  from  there  being  any  works 
of  supererogation,  not  even  the  renewed  can  perfectly  keep  the 
commands  of  God,  and  the  whole  monastic  life  is  rejected  so  far 
as  it  claims  a  higher  perfection  and  special  degree  of  merit. 

1  This  goes  so  far  that  in  the  Roman  Catholic  system  the  word  religion  if 
restricted  to  the  monastic  life. 


548  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

HISTORICAL   STATEMENTS    RESPECTING   THE    DIFFERENT   THEORIES   OP 
JUSTIFICATION. 

Each  theological  system  and  party  must  have  its  view  of 
justification,  and  that  view  is  modified  by  the  fundamental  pe« 
culiarity  of  each  system.  In  the  early  Christian  church,  to  the 
time  of  the  Augustinian  and  Pelagian  controversy,  there  was 
for  the  most  part  a  simple  Scriptural  statement  of  the  doctrine. 
It  had  not  yet  been  brought  out  through  controversy.  The  ele- 
ments of  it  were  not  analyzed.  In  the  anthropological  contro- 
versy, between  Pelagius  and  Augustine,  the  doctrine  was 
brought  to  a  statement,  in  connection  with  the  doctrines  of 
grace.  The  Pelagian  view  was,  that  our  moral  state  is  the  only 
ground  of  justification, — corresponding  to  the  general  ethical 
tendency  of  Pelagius.  In  the  Mediaeval  theology,  among  the 
Scholastics,  originated  the  theory  that  justification,  means  to 
make  just — in  distinction  from  its  being  a  declarative  act — based 
in  part  on  the  etymology  of  the  word  justification,  as  used  in 
the  Latin  language.  This  continued  to  be  the  prevalent  doc- 
trine until  the  Reformation  controversies.  It  was  then  that  the 
doctrine  first  came  to  a  full  discussion  and  articulate  statement. 
Some  of  the  Reformers  speak  of  justification  as  equivalent  to 
pardon,  and  use  the  terms  pardon  and  justification  as  synony- 
mous. But  that  was  not  in  view  of  controversies  like  ours;  it 
was  with  reference  to  the  Roman  Catholic  position.  This  was, 
that  justification  consisted  in  pardon  and  sanctification.  Luther, 
Melancthon  and  Calvin  said,  justification  consists  in  pardon,  but 
without  ever  denying  that  it  likewise  includes  the  title  to  eternal 
life.  This  is  involved  in  the  doctrine  of  assurance  which  they 
held,  though  statements  which  seem  to  make  it  merely  pardon 
may  be  extracted  from  the  writings  of  Calvin,  etc.  In  the 
course  of  the  Arminian  controversy  in  Holland,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  coming  to  its  consummation  at  the 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          549 

Synod  of  Dort,  1618-19,  the  doctrine  of  justification  was  thor- 
oughly debated,  and  the  position  of  the  Arminians  was  substan 
tially  as  follows:  Justification  is  declarative,  the  sinner  is  not 
made  just  inherently  or  relatively  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  but  ia 
restored  to  his  standing  through  God's  favor;  that,  however,  the 
ground  of  justification  is  not  Christ's  righteousness  imputed,  but 
is  personal  faith,  including  what  was  called  evangelical  obedi- 
ence— a  lower  obedience  than  that  required  by  the  law,  which 
is  accepted  instead  of  legal  obedience.  While  asserting  that 
faith,  as  including  this  evangelical  obedience,  is  the  proper  ground 
of  justification,  they  had  no  scruple  in  saying  that  the  justifica- 
tion was  gratuitous,  on  the  ground  that  God  for  Christ's  sake 
was  willing  to  accept  this  imperfect,  instead  of  perfect,  obedi- 
ence. This  included  the  position  that  faith  holds  in  its  grasp 
all  the  future  good  works  of  the  justified  person.  According  to 
this  system,  it  is  quite  apparent  that  the  law  of  God  in  its  strict- 
ness is  virtually  set  aside.  Christ  does  not  act  under  that  law, 
but  outside  of  it,  and  the  sinner  does  not  obey  that  law,  but 
renders  an  evangelical  obedience;  so  that  the  law  is  simply  set 
aside  as  far  as  Christ  is  concerned  in  his  obedience,  and  the 
sinner  in  his  obedience.  Under  this  system  sinners  were  told 
to  do  as  well  as  they  could,  and  trust  God's  mercy. 

There  have  been  some  modifications  of  the  doctrine  in  the 
discussions  in  our  own  country.  The  elder  Edwards  held  to  the 
doctrine  of  justification  in  the  sense  of  the  Protestant  symbols 
The  only  modification  which  he  made — which  is  not  a  departure 
from  the  symbols  but  simply  from  one  form  of  Calvinistic  the- 
ology— was  in  emphasizing  the  statement  that  our  real  union 
with  Christ  is  the  basis  of  the  justifying  process,  that  our 
union  with  Christ  is  the  ground  of  the  legal  procedure.  The 
younger  Edwards,  in  a  sermon  before  the  Conn.  Association,  1786, 
on  the  subject,  "  Christ  our  righteousness,"  enters  into  an  expla- 
nation of  the  nature  of  the  union  with  Christ  as  vital  in  affection, 
making  us  one  with  Him  or  causing  us  to  be  treated  as  if  one, 
on  the  ground  of  that  union,  and  then  he  proceeds  to  consider 
the  notion  of  justification  itself.  Of  this  he  makes  pardon  to  be 
an  essential  part,  not  limiting  justification,  however,  to  that,  and 


550  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

then  he  goes  on  to  say  that  it  is  the  act  of  the  sovereign,  beside 
and  above  the  law,  and  not  the  act  of  the  judge,  which  latter 
position,  he  says,  subverts  the  grace  of  the  gospel.  He  is  ex- 
plicit in  the  statement  that  the  satisfaction  and  obedience  ol 
Christ  is  the  meritorious  cause  of  justification.  When  he  denies 
that  it  is  the  act  of  a  judge,  he  must  be  understood  to  mean  that 
it  is  not  under  the  law  in  the  strictest  sense  of  distributive  jus- 
tice. He  should  not  be  taken  as  meaning  that  justification  has 
not  respect  to  the  great  ends  of  the  law.  By  the  act  of  a  judge, 
he  means  simply  a  legal  declaration  as  to  the  personal  desert  of 
each  individual,  and  then  of  course  justification  cannot  be  the 
act  of  God  as  a  judge.  This  subject  has  entered  into  later  dis- 
cussions, and  by  some  writers  of  the  so-called  New  School  bodies, 
justification  was  made  to  be  simply  equivalent  to  pardon.  Dr. 
Richards,  however,  (p.  389  seq.)  takes  a  different  ground  and 
the  ground  on  which  the  New  School  in  general  may  be  said  to 
stand.  He  also  says  that  the  law  is  not  made  the  rule  of  judg- 
ment, and  the  declaration  of  justification  is  not  according  to 
law,  that  God  acts  above  the  law :  but  he  evidently  takes  law 
and  judicial  proceeding  in  the  same  sense  with  the  younger 
Edwards:  law  means  simply  what  is  incumbent  on  each  and 
what  may  be  demanded  of  each.  There  is  another  modification 
in  respect  to  the  ground  and  the  conditions  of  justification,  in 
Mr.  Finney's  lectures  on  theology.  (1)  From  the  ground  of 
justification  he  excludes  Christ's  obedience  in  our  stead  and 
our  own  obedience — whether  under  the  law  or  the  gospel,  and 
anything  and  everything  in  the  Mediatorial  work,  including  the 
Atonement.  The  Atonement  itself  is  not  the  fundamental  rea- 
son of  justification.  The  simple  ground  is  the  disinterested  and 
infinite  love  of  God.  All  Calvinists  say  that  the  source  of  justi- 
fication is  to  be  found  in  God's  infinite  love.  By  the  ground  of 
justification  is  usually  meant,  the  specific  reason  of  pardon  and 
acquittal.  (Mr.  Finney  uses  the  word  ground  in  the  sense  of 
source.)  (2)  As  to  the  conditions  of  justification,  he  holds  that 
the  Atonement  is  one  condition,  i.  e.,  is  a  sine  qua  non,  and  that 
faith,  repentance,  and  sanctifi cation  are  all  conditions  equally. — . 
In  making  these  to  be  just  as  important  as  the  work  of  Christ, 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  551 

he  destroys  justification  as  a  specific  doctrine.  His  position  re- 
solves justification  into  sanctification  or  regeneration,  and  leaves 
it  no  validity  of  its  own.  He  is  consistent  in  requiring  entire 
sanctification. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  JUSTIFICATION. 

Obj.  I. — It  makes  good  works  unnecessary. — But  good  works 
are  excluded  only  in  one  aspect,  i.  e.,  in  relation  to  justification. 
They  are  as  much  as  ever  necessary  in  our  holiness  and  Christian 
life.  We  are  created  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works. 

Obj.  II. — Justification  makes  salvation  to  be  a  matter  of  right 
and  debt,  on  the  ground  of  Christ's  obedience  in  our  stead;  and 
this  excludes  it  from  being  an  act  of  grace. — But  this  can  be 
maintained  only  on  the  ground  of  the  mercantile  theory  of  the 
Atonement — that  Christ,  in  dying  for  the  elect  only,  paid  for  them 
an  exact  quid  pro  quo.  The  fact  is  that  salvation  comes  entirely 
from  grace.  It  is  God's  grace  which  is  made  glorious  by  the 
Atonement. 

Obj.  III. — Justification  is  a  merely  external  transaction. — But 
we  are  justified  by  faith,  and  faith  is  not  external  but  internal. 

Obj.  IV. — There  is  a  conflict  in  this  matter  between  Paul  and 
James. — But  James  commends  faith  as  holy.  What  he  is  speak- 
ing against  is  a  dead  faith — merely  intellectual — and  he  enjoins 
upon  the  disciples  to  show  their  faith  by  their  works,  so  that 
faith  is  the  primitive  thing  even  with  him.  He  starts  (ii.  24) 
from  morality  to  find  its  roots:  if  there  is  no  morality  there  is  no 
root.  Paul  goes  from  the  faith  to  the  works.  With  him  the  sap 
is  first,  with  James,  the  fruit.  James  reprobates  a  dead  faith, 
Paul  urges  a  living  faith.1 

Obj.  V. — Righteousness  is  not  transferable. — We  assent,  and 

1  See  Dr.  Woods,  and  his  citation  from  Wardlaw,  that  Paul  is  speaking  of  the 
justification  of  the  sinner,  and  James  of  the  justification  of  the  believer. 


552  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

say  that  Christ's  personal  righteousness  is  not  transferred.     On 
account  of  his  righteousness  we  are  treated  as  if  righteous. 

Obj.  VI — Christ's  obedience  can  be  no  part  of  our  justifica 
tion,  because  He  owed  his  obedience  for  himself. — But  Christ 
did  not  owe  an  obedience  for  himself  unto  death,  and  He  did 
not  owe  for  himself  to  take  the  place  which  He  took  in  the 
moral  administration  of  the  world,  but  He  took  it  in  our  stead. 

Obj.  VII. — Believers  although  justified  are  still  punished.— 
They  are  not  punished  in  the  strict  sense,  but  in  the  sense  in 
which  punishment  is  necessary  for  reformation.  Their  punish- 
ments become  chastisements. 

Obj.  VIII. — The  Scriptures  declare  that  in  the  Last  Judg 
ment,  works  will  be  made  the  basis  of  adjudication. — But  there 
must  be  a  proper  conception  of  the  Last  Judgment.  It  is  not 
the  declaring  of  the  sentence  of  the  law,  but  is  the  final  sentence 
itself.  It  is  for  the  manifestation  of  character  and  state.  ,  It  has 
not  to  do  with  our  condemnation  under  the  law  immediately, 
because  we  are  condemned  under  the  law  all  along.  That  view 
which  makes  the  Judgment  parallel  with  a  human  tribunal, 
where  the  guilt  or  innocence  is  first  pronounced,  is  not  the  view 
of  Scripture.  It  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  view  that  all  the 
world  is  already  under  condemnation.  The  Last  Judgment  is 
the  winding  up  of  the  present  sphere  of  things.  It  is  the  as- 
signment of  all  who  have  lived  to  their  final  condition,  and 
what  that  is  to  be  is  manifested  in  their  works. 

Obj.  IX. — The  Scriptures  speak  of  other  grounds  of  accept- 
ance,  besides  the  merits  of  Christ — such  conditions  as  our  for 
giveness  of  others,  our  repentance,  etc.  But  they  do  not  speak 
of  these  in  the  same  relation  that  they  do  of  Christ's  work. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTIuJ.  553 

BOOK    III 
REGENERATION  AND    REPENTANCE. 

We  combine  these,  because  they  give  us  respectively  the 
divine  and  the  human  side  of  the  new  life.  The  original  usage 
of  the  term  regeneration  is  of  the  new  life  as  ascribed  to  Christ. 
Eepentance  refers  to  the  new  life  as  it  comes  into  human  con- 
sciousness. The  new  life  is  a  life  in  Christ,  and  regeneration 
involves  union  with  Christ  and  not  a  change  of  heart  without 
relation  to  Him.  In  this  doctrine  we  come  into  the  sphere  of 
the  direct  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Kegeneration  is  the 
Spirit's  work  in  man,  turning  him  from  sin  to  holiness,  from 
self  to  Christ. 

CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY  STATEMENTS. 

§  1.   The  Doctrine  as  held  in  some  of  the  different  Systems. 

Each  ecclesiastical  and  theological  system  has  its  doctrine 
of  regeneration,  the  statement  of  which  is  determined  by  the 
fundamental  principles  of  each  system.  The  central  point  of 
each  system  will  define  the  doctrine  of  regeneration.  Each 
system  must  have  it  in  some  form,  because  it  is  contained  in 
the  Scriptures  so  plainly. 

1.  The  Roman  Catholic  system  makes  regeneration  to  be 
through  the  church  and  sacraments.     It  is  effected  by  sacra- 
mental grace,  which  can  be  conveyed  only  through  the  channels 
of  the  church.     Baptism  has  an  inherent  efficacy  in  removing 
moral  pollution.     It  infuses  what  is  called  in  the  technical  lan- 
guage of  theology  a  new  habit,1  what  we  now  call  a  new  state. 

2.  In  the  Church  of  England,  in  conformity  with  the  liturgy, 
the  doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration  is  maintained.     In  the 
order  for  baptism,  the  minister,  after  the  service  is  performed, 
is   to  say:    "this   child   is   regenerate — ."      This,    however,   is 

1  Habitus,  something  which  one  has. 


554  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

inconsistent  with,  the  XXXIX.  Articles.  Accordingly  tie  evan- 
gelical portion  of  the  church  define  regeneration  in  an  external 
sense.  They  distinguish  it  from  conversion,  and  define  it  as  a 
change  of  external  state,  as  an  introduction  into  the  church  ae 
an  external  body,  as  we  put  a  cadet  into  West  Point.  This 
takes  from  it  its  spiritual  import,  and  substitutes  the  outward 
for  the  inward. 

3.  The  Pelagian  view  puts  regeneration  solely  in  an  executive 
act  of  the  human  will.  It  makes  regeneration  to  be  the  result 
of  an  act  of  choice.  Holiness  is  conferred  by  the  choice  or 
preference  of  the  individual.  This  runs  into 

4  The  rationalistic  theory,  which  reduces  regeneration  to 
a  conformity  to  moral  requirements,  and  chiefly  to  those  which 
concern  our  relation  with  our  fellow  beings.  The  change  is 
a  natural  one,  is  explained  by  the  laws  of  the  human  mind. 
Moral  improvement  is  regeneration. 

5.  Some  theories  of  parties  in  this  country. 

(a.)  The  strict  exercise  scheme,  as  held  by  Dr.  Emmons. 
Regeneration  is  an  act  or  choice  or  volition,  one  of  a  series; 
of  such  series  a  moral  being  is  made  up,  there  being  nothing 
behind  these.  Moreover  this  volition  is  in  every  case,  whether 
it  be  sinful  or  holy,  by  direct  divine  efficiency :  God  creates  it. 
It  is  an  exercise,  but  the  product  of  an  immediate  divine  change. 
The  later  exercise  scheme  is  different.  It  makes  the  exercises 
to  be  not  the  result  of  the  divine  efficiency,  but  of  the  man's 
agency.  It  puts  in  a  soul  behind  the  volitions,  which  is  their 
source,  and  a  will  which  brings  the  exercises  into  being. 

(b.)  The  taste  theory.  Hopkins,  Bellamy,  D wight  and  Bur- 
ton make  regeneration  to  consist  not  in  an  exercise,  but  in  a 
new  relish  implanted.  The  heart,  the  affections  are  essentially 
involved  in  it. 

These  two  opinions  divided  the  older  Hopkinsianism. 

(c.)  The  theory  that  regeneration  consists  in  a  change  in  the 
governing  purpose.  This  asserts  that  all  that  is  moral  is  found 
in  the  governing  purpose.  The  change  in  this  is  what  makes 
the  renewal  of  the  soul.  It  is  a  choice.  There  may  be  rnctives 
and  feelings  and  the  action  of  the  heart,  but  the  renewal  is  ic 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          555 

the  governing  purpose.  This  theory  takes  two  forms:  (1)  That 
this  governing  purpose  involves  essentially  an  affection,  and  is 
not  an  act  of  bare  will, — not  a  mere  purpose,  but  a  purpose 
which  includes  an  affection,  so  that  it  is  a  combination  of  the 
sensibilities  and  the  will.  The  purpose  is  a  preference  or  love. 
(2)  Others  hold  that  the  governing  purpose  may  be  without 
the  affections, — that  the  affections  lead  to  it,  but  are  not  com- 
prised in  the  purpose.  Psychologically,  the  difference  would 
be  this:  Man  is  made  up  of  intellect,  feeling,  and  will.  All  agree 
that  there  must  be  presentation  of  truth  to  the  intellect,  that 
there  must  also  be  an  awakening  of  the  susceptibilities,  and  that 
this  must  lead  to  a  new  governing  purpose.  They  differ  as  to 
whether  this  purpose  takes  the  affections  with  it,  or  whether  it 
may  have  the  affections  outside  of  it.  Those  who  hold  this  lat- 
ter position  have  always  said  that  that  purpose  may  be  formed 
without  any  affection  appearing  in  it, — that  all  the  affections 
may  be  towards  the  world,  while  the  purpose  is  towards  God. 
And  this  is  the  logical  result  of  the  system. 

(d.)  The  "self-love"  theory,  presented  in  an  article  in  The 
Christian  Spectator,  1829.  It  advocated  the  self-love  theory  of 
morals  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  regeneration.  The 
object  of  the  article  was  to  show  how  the  sinner  is  regenerated, 
as  far  as  this  is  psychologically  possible.  It  says  that  in  self- 
love  is  the  prompting  to  all  action,  meaning  by  this  our  natural 
desire  for  happiness.  There  cannot  be  any  moral  action  which 
is  not  from  and  for  self-love,  because  such  self-love  is  instinctive, 
and  enters  into  all  our  moral  acts.  We  are  happy  in  loving 
God,  and  that  is  the  ultimate  subjective  motive  for  loving  Him. 
We  love  the  world  because  we  are  happy  in  the  world.  On  this 
basis,  the  article  proceeds  to  the  theory  of  regeneration.  The 
first  thing  is  to  arouse  in  the  mind  this  desire  for  happiness, 
and  to  fix  it  on  some  future  good,  on  heaven, — to  represent  the 
Christian  scheme  as  the  only  one  which  can  confer  happiness, 
and  to  make  that  the  radical  motive.  Then  all  the  doctrines 
and  motives  of  the  gospel  are  brought  up — the  feelings  are 
aroused — the  aroused  feeling  produces  a  sharper  view  of  truth—- 
that again  stirs  the  feelings  more  and  more,  and  thus  the  play 


556  CHRISTIAN      THEOLOGY. 

is  between  the  intellect  and  the  feelings,  until  the  sinner  is 
brought  to  the  point  where  he  suspends  the  rushing  tide  of  evil 
desire,  and  then  the  Holy  Spirit  comes  in  and  renews  the  soul. 

Remarks  on  this  Theory.  (1)  Why  would  it  not  be  as  well  to 
introduce  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  just  before — and  indeed  all 
along  before — as  well  as  at  the  nodus  ?  Why  is  it  not  more 
Scriptural  to  say  that  at  all  the  points  the  Spirit  operates  ?  (2) 
Self-love,  presented  here  as  the  ultimate  motive  and  that  which 
is  to  do  the  work  of  renewal,  can  never  account  for  regeneration. 
If  the  ultimate  decision  be  made  in  view  of  self-love — exalt  that 
to  what  height  we  may — if  that  be  the  ultimate  motive,  then  the 
soul  is  still  in  sin,  because  the  ultimate  motive  has  been  the  de- 
sire after  its  own  happiness,  and  that  is  of  the  essence  of  sin. 
(3)  It  is  equally  difficult  to  see  how  this  suspension  of  sinful 
activity  is  brought  about  or  can  be.  How  can  the  sinner,  with 
his  heart  still  unrenewed,  be  induced  to  suspend  the  tide  of  evil 
desires  ?  He  must  do  this,  in  order  to  get  a  chance  for  the  put- 
ting forth  of  a  holy  volition.  Suppose  it  suspended:  it  was  from 
a  motive  good,  bad,  or  indifferent.  If  the  motive  was  good,  the 
thing  had  been  done  already;  if  bad,  it  involves  sin;  if  indif- 
ferent, there  could  be  no  suspension.  (4)  There  is  another  sup- 
posable  case:  the  person  decides  without  a  motive.  Then  the 
decision  could  not  have  any  moral  character.  To  suppose  that  a 
man  can  for  a  moment  suspend  his  sinful  nature,  and  remain 
for  an  instant  without  any  character,  is  an  inconceivability. 
(5)  It  might  be  added  that  even  in  unrenewed  human  nature 
there  are  better  elements  than  self-love  or  desire  for  happiness: 
conscience,  spiritual  and  moral  susceptibilities,  which  are  ap- 
pealed to. 

6.  The  general  evangelical  doctrine  of  regeneration.  We 
give  here  the  several  heads  which  are  to  be  debated  in  what 
follows. 

(a.)  Regeneration  is  a  supernatural  change  of  which  God  is 
the  author,  which  is  wrought  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

(6.)  In  its  idea  it  is  instantaneous,  although  not  always  so  in 
conscious  experience. 

Cn.  >  In  adults  it  is  wrought  most  frequently  by  the  word  of 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          557 

God  as  the  instrument.  Believing  that  infants  may  be  regen 
erated,  we  cannot  assert  that  it  is  tied  to  the  word  of  God 
absolutely. 

(d.)  It  involves  the  renewal  of  the  whole  man — not  merely 
of  one  of  his  faculties.  It  gives  a  new  direction  to  all  hia 
faculties. 

(e.)  There  is  no  antecedent  co-operation  on  man's  part  in  the 
change  itself.  The  efficiency  in  the  change  is  not  human,  it  is 
in  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  act  of  the  will  on  man's  part  does  not 
produce,  but  indicates  the  change. 

(/.)  Regeneration,  in  the  New  Testament  sense,  is  on  the 
basis  of  Christ's  work,  and  consists  essentially  in  the  application 
of  what  Christ  has  done,  to  the  human  soul,  through  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

((/.)  This  new  state  shows  itself  in  faith,  repentance,  and  good 
works. 

Negatively — 

(A.)  Regeneration  is  not  a  physical  change  but  a  change  in 
the  moral  state.  It  does  not  impart  new  faculties,  it  gives  di- 
rection to  our  faculties. 

(i.)  It  does  not  consist  in  the  executive  acts  of  the  will  as 
distinguished  from  the  immanent  preference,  but  it  is  essentially 
found  in  the  latter.  Nor  is  it  in  the  conscious,  as  distinguished 
from  the  unconscious,  moral  states  of  man.  We  know  it  in  its 
results,  not  in  its  essence. 

§  2.   Of  tJie  Terms  employed. 

1.  Repentance  is  used  often  as  synonymous  with  conversion. 
It  implies  a  change  of  mind  as  conversion  also  denotes  an  act 
of  turning.  Regeneration  is  usually  employed  most  strictly  to 
denote  that  divine  agency,  in  and  upon  the  human  soul,  which 
insures  a  certain  mode  of  action  in  man's  powers  in  the  direction 
of  holiness.  Regeneration  is  thus  the  divine  side  of  the  whole 
event,  and  if  the  divine  agency  alone  is  regarded,  man  may 
be  said  to  be  passive;  but  when  it  is  viewed  as  upon  the  soul,  it 
involves  an  activity  of  the  soul.  It  cannot  be  said  that  man  is 
passive  in  the  change,  because  if  there  is  a  change  it,  implies  an 


658  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

activity;  but  in  the  origination  of  the  change,  in  the  efficient 
cause,  man  is  not  the  agent.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  agent,  but 
as  soon  as  the  Holy  Spirit  acts,  there  must  be  activity  in  the 
soul.  If  regeneration  is  confined  to  the  divine  agency  simply, 
without  including  its  effect  in  the  soul,  man  is  said  to  be  passive, 
because  he  is  not  the  author  of  the  act;  but  so  soon  as  that  agency 
is  exerted  there  is  activity  in  the  soul,  which  is  usually  called 
conversion  or  repentance.  The  controversy  in  respect  to  activ- 
ity and  passivity  is  really  one  without  much  significance  when 
explanations  are  made,  if  the  parties  are  agreed  on  this  point — 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  dominant  cause  and  factor.  The 
controversy  is  of  importance  if  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  denied. 

2.  The  term  Regeneration,  in  its  strictest  sense,  may  be  said 
to  signify  or  have  reference  to  an  instantaneous  act,  an  act  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  moment  of  time,  whereby  the  soul  is  re- 
newed, changed  from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  love  of  holiness;  and 
as  such  an  instantaneous  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  it  is  distinct 
from  conversion  and  repentance,  and  also  from  sanctification, 
which  is   the   continued    development    of  what  is    begun    in 
regeneration. 

3.  Regeneration  is  often  used  in  a  much  wider  sense.     In  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers  it  is  equivalent  to  baptism — the  sign 
being  taken  as  equivalent  to  the  thing  signified.     This  was  easier 
to  be  done  at  a  time  when  the  profession  of  Christ  required  of  a 
person  to  forsake  everything  in  the  world,  and  when  willingness 
to  be  baptized  constituted  a  good  evidence  of  true  regeneration. 
The  term  is  also  used,  as  we  have  seen,  by  evangelical  Angli- 
cans, but  by  a  forced  interpretation,  made  to  enable  them  to 
accept  their  liturgy.     It  is  also  used  as  designating  the  whole 
Christian  life  in  its  beginning  and  effects,  including  sanctifica- 
tion and  the  final  glorified  condition. 

4  Some  Scriptural  representations  of  this  renewed  life :  It  is 
described  as  a  renewal  after  the  image  of  God;  a  being  in  Christ; 
a  new  creature  or  creation ;  a  resurrection  from  the  dead ;  light 
in  contrast  with  darkness ;  life  in  contrast  with  death ;  a  transla- 
tion into  a  new  kingdom,  into  the  kingdom  of  God's  dear  Son;  a 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  559 

being  born  again  of  the  Spirit;  a  new  heart.  Ezek.  xxxvi.  26; 
John  iii.  3;  Deut.  xxx.  6  in  connection  with  Rom.  ii.  29;  Eph. 
ii.  1-10;  i.  18;  2  Cor.  v.  17;  Gal.  vi.  15;  Eph.  iv.  23,  24 

§  3.  Connection  of  the  Doctrine  of  Regeneration  with  otJier  Truths, 

1.  The  term  regeneration  is  often  used  in  an  abstract  way, 
as  designating  the  general  element  of  the  renewed  life.     Some- 
times it  is  reduced  to  a  single  affection  or  purpose  or  feeling. 
There  is  undoubtedly  such  a  general  element,  which  can  be 
stated  in  an  abstract  form.     We  can  single  out  the  term  holiness 
as  expressing  the  nature  of  the  new  state — as  contrasted  with  the 
term  sin  as  expressing  moral  evil — and  can  then  say  that  regen- 
eration is  a  change  from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  love  of  holiness. 
But  in  doing  this,  we  ought  to  be  careful  not  to  sever  regenera- 
tion from  the  other  truths,  so  as  to  leave  the  way  open  for  the 
inference  that  there  can  be  a  real  regeneration  which  does  not 
involve  faith  in  Christ,  a  belief  in  his  atoning  work,  and  the 
renewing  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit.1 

2.  Regeneration  includes,  and  in  a  Christian  sense  cannot  be 
used  without  reference  to,  the  relation  to  Christ,  to  the  union  of 
the  soul  by  faith  to  Christ.     The  union  with  Christ  is  vital,  and 
is  what  constitutes  the  new  life.     The  Spirit  which  effects  the 
change  is  the  Spirit  of  Christ.     There  need  not  always  be  a 
conscious  apprehension   of  Christ  at  the  time.     Calvin  defines 
regeneration  as  coming  to  us  by  participation  in  Christ.     The 
Scriptural  statements  are  such  as  the  following:  1  Cor.  i.  30; 
Col.  iii.  9,  10;  Eph.  ii.  10;  Rom.  viii.  2;  2  Cor.  v.  17. 

1  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,  who  was  one  of  the  most  orthodox  of  men,  defined  the 
new  state  resulting  from  regeneration  as  disinterested  benevolence.  He  held 
strongly  to  the  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  and  indeed  to  the  highest  and  most  pun- 
gent Calvinism.  Dr.  Channing,  who  was  brought  up  under  him,  took  his  definition 
of  the  new  life.  Channing' s  mind  worked  upon  it  thus:  That  which  is  essential  to 
a  Christian  is  to  have  such  benevolence.  If  I  have  that,  of  course  I  am  a  Christian. 
What  essential  need  is  there  then  for  my  believing  also  in  the  Trinity,  Atonement, 
and  Justification?— With  any  other  abstract  definition  of  regeneration  such  a  re- 
suit  might  be  reached.  It  has  been  defined  as  the  choice  of  the  highest  good. 
But  the  pantheist  makes  choice  of  the  highest  good  from  his  point  of  view.  Such 
statements  may  be  taken  as  good  abstract  statements,  but  not  as  including  the 
whole  truth. 


660  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE    NECESSITY    OP    REGENERATION. 

1  The  doctrine  of  depravity  proves  the  necessity  of  regener- 
ation If  the  depravity  of  man  be  such  as  we  have  seen  it,  then, 
in  order  that  he  may  attain  to  a  holy  state,  he  must  be  born 
again.  There  is  no  way  of  his  coming  into  this  new  condition 
except  by  regeneration  of  the  soul. 

2.  Regeneration  is  necessary  if  men  are  to  enjoy  what  is  per- 
fectly holy  here  and  hereafter.    To  be  in  the  presence  of  the  glo- 
ries of  heaven  with  a  depraved  heart,  would.be  no  joy  to  the  sinner. 

3.  It  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  atoning  work  of  Christ 
be  applied  and  received.     This  takes  effect  upon  us  only  through 
regeneration.     The  receiving  of  his  atoning  work  is  the  renewal 
of  the  soul. 

4.  It  is  necessary  for  the  exercise  of  the  specific  graces  of  the 
Christian  character.     All  the  graces  of  the  Christian  life  flow 
from  this  birth, — all  true  happiness,  peace,  and  humility. 

5.  The  Scriptures  assert  emphatically  the  necessity   of  re- 
generation: Matt,  xviii.  3;  John  iii.  3. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    SUBJECTIVE    CHARACTERISTICS    OP   REGENERATION. 

1.  Regeneration  is  not  a  physical  change.  The  term  phy- 
sical, as  used  in  respect  to  regeneration,  is  differently  defined. 
It  may  mean  what  belongs  to  the  external  material  world,  or 
what  belongs  to  the  essence  and  faculties  of  man.  Regenera- 
tion is  not  physical  as  implying  a  change  in  the  essence  or  fac- 
ulties of  man.  There  is  no  dispute  about  this.  Besides  the 
essence  and  faculties,  what  else  is  there  in  man  ?  Where  does 
regeneration  come  ?  Those  who  hold  strictly  to  the  exercise 
scheme  reason  thus:  There  are  in  man,  (1)  the  essence,  (2)  the 
faculties,  (3)  the  acts  or  exercises  of  the  faculties.  Regenera- 


THE     KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  561 

tion  is  not  in  the  1st  or  2d,  therefore  it  must  be  in  the  3d. — A 
better  analysis  gives  this  statement:  There  are  in  man,  1st,  the 
essence,  2dly,  the  faculties,  3dly,  the  generic  tendencies,  4thly,  the 
actions.  The  regeneration  then  will  take  effect  in  the  3d  and 
4th, — not  merely  in  the  specific  acts,  but  in  the  ground  or  source 
of  those  acts.  Take,  e.  g.,  the  case  of  Adam  before  he  acted. 
He  had  the  substance  or  essence  of  humanity  in  all  the  faculties 
of  human  nature.  He  acted.  We  will  suppose  that  his  first 
act  was  an  act  of  trust  in  God.  Now  was  there  in  him  anything 
between  the  faculties  and  the  choice  of  the  acts  ?  Advocates  of 
the  exercise  scheme  would  say,  No;  but  it  is  more  Scriptural 
and  philosophical  to  say,  that  before  any  act  there  was  a  bias  or 
principle  on  the  ground  or  basis  of  which  his  choice  was  made; 
and  that  this  principle  or  tendency  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  state 
or  direction  of  the  faculties;  and  that  was  expressed  in  the  first 
holy  act  or  choice.  In  the  child  now  there  is  not  merely  the 
essence  with  its  faculties,  but  also  a  bias  or  tendency. 

2.  Regeneration  does  not  have  to  do  with  the  executive  acts 
of  the  will,  merely.     The  executive  acts  of  the  will  are  the  de- 
termination to  do  something.     They  have  respect  to  something 
to   be  achieved.     They  carry   out  the   underlying   preference. 
The  freedom  in  these  acts  is  the  freedom  from  constraint,  but 
they  all  presuppose  a  motive  or  bias  or  tendency.     They  are  not 
the  true  seat  of  character,  but  express  character. 

3.  Nor  does  regeneration  consist  in  an  immanent  preference 
as  the  product  of  an  executive  act.     This  seems  to  be  impossi- 
ble, although  many  of  the  exhortations  to  repentance  appear  to 
imply  the  possibility  of  forming  an  immanent  preference  by  an 
executive  act.     A  man  is  told  that  he  can  repent  as  easily  as 
he  can  walk.     A  man  walks  because  he  has  made  a  determina- 
tion to  walk  and  the  walking  follows  the  choice,  but  the  act  of 
repentance  cannot  follow  a  choice.     It  is  in  the  choice  itself. 
There  is  as  much  difference  as  between  love  and  the  motion  of 
the  hand.     The  change  is  the  choice  and  the  choice  the  change, 

4.  Regeneration  does  not  have  to  do  with  the  heart,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  will  and  the  other  powers  of  man.     It  is  not 
merely  in  the  sensibilities. 


562  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

5.  Regeneration  has  to  do  with  the  immanent  preference 
We  have  seen  that  the  will  has  two  main  and  very  different 
functions:   (a.)  The  immanent  preferences,   (b.)  the  executive 
volitions.     In  the  immanent  preference  is  the  seat  of  true  mor- 
ality, spirituality,  and  it  is  this  which  when  brought  into  a  right 
stato  discloses  the  great  end  of  man.     In  order  to  its  renewal, 
there  are  necessary  the  vision  of  divine  things,  and  then  the 
love  for  divine  things  as  the  ruling  principle.     Love,  which  is 
the  immanent  preference,  itself  includes  both  the  affections  and 
the  will.     In  love  to  God,  for  instance,  there  is  the  strongest 
current   of  affection    and   the   most   undoubted    preference   or 
choice.     This  of  course  has  for  its  result  the  living  for  the  end 
chosen,  and  the  highest  delight  in  it.     In  short,  regeneration  in 
its  full  measure  and  extent  involves  a  new  direction  of  all  the 
human  powers  from  the  world  and  towards  God, — an  illumina- 
tion  of  the  understanding,  a  current  of  the  affections,  and  a 
choice   of  the  will.     This  position   is   fully  sustained    by   the 
Scriptures:  Jer.  xxiv.  7;  xxxi.  33;  Ezek.  xi.  19;  Eph.  iv.  24;  John 
iii.  6;  Eph.  iv.  22,  23;  1  Cor.  ii.   14;  2  Cor.  iv.  6;  1  John  ii.  10; 
John  xiv.    15.     The  Scriptures  also  represent  this  renewal  as 
shown  in  all  the  life  as  well  as  in  all  the  faculties:  John  xiv.  23. 

6.  According  to  the  Scriptural  statements  and  what  we  de- 
rive from  experience,  it  is  evident  that  the  deepest  ground  in  us, 
on  which  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  exerted,  does  not 
come  into  immediate  consciousness.     The  work  can  be  known 
by  its  fruits  and  results;  and  not  by  immediate  consciousness: 
John  iii.  8. 

7.  It  is  still  further  apparent  that  this  work  must  be  instan- 
taneous,— not  in  conscious  experience,  but  as  the  work  of  the 
Spirit.     In  conscious  experience  it  may  be  far  from  instantaneous. 
The  reason  for  insisting  upon  its  being  instantaneous,  is  the  utter 
difference  between  sin  and  holiness.     We  cannot  make  the  tran- 
sition from  the  one  to  the  other,  because  they  are  opposed  to 
each  other.     There  must  be  some  point  in  the  movement  of  the 
soul  where  it  turns  from  darkness  to  light.     We  may  not  be 
able  to  discern  it,  but  from  the  nature  of  the  case  there  must  be 
such  a  time.     This  alone  is  conformable  with   the   Scriptural 


THE    KINGDOM    OF     REDEMPTION.  563 

statements:  the  account  of  the  conversion  of  Paul,  the  expres- 
sions, "  new  life,"  "  new  creation,"  "  being  born  again,"  and  the 
like.  The  reasons  why  other  views  have  been  held  are:  (a.)  The 
word  regeneration  is  used  by  some  in  a  broad  and  loose  sense, 
as  including  all  that  God  does  in  bringing  man  to  himself — 
prevenient  grace,  providence, — but  this  is  not  the  Scriptural 
sense  of  regeneration.  (&.)  What  precedes  is  sometimes  taken 
as  a  part  of  the  renewal,  e.  g,,  the  conviction  of  sin,  which  may 
be  very  deep  where  there  is  no  renewal  of  the  soul,  which  may 
be  conviction  from  a  sense  of  fear  rather  than  from  a  sense  of 
holiness,  (c.)  There  is  sometimes  an  unwillingness  to  ascribe  the 
work  in  its  utmost  essence  to  God.  There  is  a  tendency  to  the 
viewing  it  exclusively  in  its  human  relations,  and  as  it  comes 
out  in  man's  experience,  (d.)  Regeneration  is  made  to  be  en- 
tirely analogous  to  changes  in  moral  character,  which  are  often 
gradual.  But  in  the  renewal  of  the  soul,  there  is  more  than  a 
moral  work,  there  is  a  spiritual  process.  There-  is  more  than 
the  operation  of  man's  faculties,  there  is  a  divine  agency.  From 
the  sphere  of  morals  we  can  derive  only  a  partial  analogy,  in- 
complete as  to  the  central  point.  Mere  prudential  motives  are 
enough  to  produce  a  moral  change,  but  they  cannot  produce  a 
spiritual  change.  They  do  not  reach  the  heart,  the  root  of  the 
matter.  - 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    AUTHOR    OP     REGENERATION. 

The  Scriptural  representation  is  that  regeneration  is  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  proper  efficient  cause,  setting  in  motion  all 
other  occasional  influences  and  causes. 

1.  The  positive  Scriptural  statements:  Ps.  li.  10;  Jer.  xxiv.  7; 
Eph.  ii.  10;  John  i.  13;  James  i.  18. 

2.  Scripture  represents  that  in  this  God  acts  not  arbitrarily 
but  as  a  sovereign:  Rom.  ix.  16;  1  Cor.  i.  30,  31;  iv.  7. 

3.  Scripture  represents  that  a  special  power  of  God  is  exer 
cised  in  the  renewal  of  the  soul,  a  power  which  is  supernatural 


564 


CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 


rather  than  miraculous.  A  direct  agency  of  God  is  implied  in 
the  whole  phraseology  of  a  new  heart,  new  birth,  and  the  as- 
cription  of  the  holiness  in  man  to  God :  1  Cor.  ii.  14. 

4.  To  confirm  this  the  doctrine  of  divine  providence  leads  to 
the  inference  that  all  the  circumstances  and  influences,  in  respect 
to  regeneration,  are  under  the  divine  agency  and  control.     The 
whole  of  providence,  so  far  as  that  has  to  do  with  the  work,  is 
the  work  of  God. 

5.  It  is  rational  that  God  should  be  the  author  of  regenera- 
tion.    This  highest  work  in  man  is  most  naturally  ascribed  to 
Him.     The  analogy  of  all  the  other  works  and  ways  of  God  leads 
to  the  inference.     His  power  works  in  all  nature,  much  more  in 
the  spiritual  realm.     Here  is  the  highest  good,  the  chief  blessing. 


CHAPTER  V. 

HOW    DOES    THE    SPIRIT    REGENERATE    THE    SOUL  ? 

All  God's  modes  of  action  are  mysterious  in  the  kingdom  of 
nature  and  providence,  and  it  is  especially  probable  that  there 
will  be  mystery  in  his  highest  and  deepest  work,  in  the  realm  of 
grace.  Any  theory  of  regeneration  which  explains  it  all  must  be 
false,  because  it  assumes  that  the  finite  can  compass  the  ways  of 
Omnipotence.  As  far  as  any  statements  can  be  made  with  proper 
reserve,  the  following  are  probably  most  in  accord  with  Scripture : 

1.  In  all  regeneration,  whether  of  infants  or  adults,  there 
must  be  essentially  the  same  operation  of  the  Spirit.     There 
cannot  be  two  kinds  of  regeneration,  although  there  may  be  a 
diversity  of  modes. 

2.  The  work  of  the  Spirit  is  properly  called  supernatural 
rather  than  miraculous.     Miraculous  implies  a  divine  interven- 
tion against  the  ordinary  methods  of  God's  working,  both  in  the 
kingdom  of  nature  and  of  grace.     A  supernatural  work  implies 
that  the  cause  is  above  nature,  but  that  it  may  and  does  work 
through  natural  channels  in  the  order  of  providence,  according 
to  appointed  methods  in  the  kingdom  of  grace.     In  a  super- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          565 

natural  work  there  is  a  use  of  means  through  which  the  su- 
pernatural element  courses.  Although  the  influence  itself  is 
beyond  means,  yet  it  is  through  and  by  means.  In  the  king- 
dom of  God's  grace  there  are  ordinary  methods  or  channels 
through  which  that  grace  courses. 

3.  These  means  may  be  various  as  far  as  consciousness  ex- 
tends: the  course  of  providence,  crises  of  life,  sorrow,  even  joy. 
Often  some  of  the  means  least  valued  are  those  which  God  uses. 
In  many  cases,  perhaps  in  almost  every  case,  of  the  revival  of 
God's  work,  the  means  used  for  bringing  it  about  are  what  were 
not  anticipated.     This  has  been  exemplified  in  the  history  of  re- 
vivals in  our  own  country. 

4.  The  ultimate  act  in  regeneration  is  without  instrumental- 
ity.    That  is,  it  is  a  direct  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     If  there 
be  renewal  of  infants,  this  must  be  the  case.     Infants  are  saved; 
therefore  they  must  be  regenerated  by  an  act  which  is  without 
any  apparent  instrumentality.     And  if  regeneration  be  always 
the  same,  there  must  be  the  same  essential  element  in  all  other 
cases.     It  is  sometimes  made  a  test  question  whether  a  person 
can  be  regenerated  in  his  sleep.     If  it  is  made  a  question  whether 
God  can  renew  a  soul  when  that  soul  is  unconscious,  we  should 
say,  Yes,  and  any  other  view  than  that  would  imply  that  the  hu- 
man element  is  the  prime  factor.     But  we  also  say,  that  while 
the  divine  influence  may  work  upon  a  mind  which  is  uncon- 
scious, it  will  express  itself  when  the  mind  becomes  conscious 
in  a  change  of  preference,  and  that  that  will  be  the  first  con- 
scious act  of  the  individual. 

5.  The  ultimate  regenerating  act  is  not  properly  to  be  called 
resistible,  because  it  secures  the  will.     The  will  is  with  it.     The 
very  word  resistible  implies  that  the  will  is  undecided,     All  that 
precedes  the  renewing  act  can  be  called  resistible,  and  so  can 
what  most  persons  call  regeneration.     But  if  we  come  to  the 
central  point — the  influence  of  the  Spirit  securing  the  will — we 
cannot  speak  of  its  being  resistible  any  more  than  we  can  speak 
of  the  possibility  of  a  person  making  a  different  choice  from  one 
which  he  is  making.     He  might  do  it  the  instant  before,  but 
now  the  will  is  secure. 


566  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

6  The  nature  of  activity  and  passivity.  Both  active  and 
passive  elements  are  involved  in  regeneration.  The  active  ele- 
merits,  however,  are  to  be  viewed  as  the  result  of  the  Spirit's  in- 
fluences.  The  great  law  of  action  and  reaction  applies  here. 
The  activity  of  the  sinner  is  the  result  or  manifestation  or  the 
index  of  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   MEANS    OF   REGENERATION. 

§  1.  External  providential  Means. 

There  is,  in  God's  providence,  a  large  mass  of  external  means, 
including  the  church  and  the  ministry — their  instructions  and 
all  their  influence. 

§  2.  Acts  of  tlie  Sinner  as  among  the  Means. 

There  are  also  certain  acts  of  the  sinner  himself,  to  which  he 
is  to  be  exhorted,  as  coming  among  the  means. 

I. — He  is  to  be  exhorted  to  fix  his  attention  upon  the  truth 
as  it  is  presented  to  him  in  the  Scriptures,  religious  books,  or 
preaching.  In  the  essay  in  the  Christian  Spectator  to  which  we 
have  referred,  this  and  similar  exhortations  are  drawn  out  so  as 
to  give  the  whole  conscious  process  of  the  soul  in  renewal,  and 
the  matter  is  there  stated  thus:  There  are  certain  acts  in  them- 
selves neither  right  nor  wrong.  The  sinner  is  to  be  exhorted  to 
make  use  of  certain  parts  of  complex  acts,  particularly  to  fix  the 
mind  upon  those  motives  which  come  from  self-love  or  the  in- 
stinctive desire  of  happiness,  and  that  is  to  be  the  main  working 
element.  The  attention  is  not  to  be  mainly  on  the  truth,  but  on 
the  truth  as  related  to  the  sinner's  happiness;  and  the  love  of 
happiness  being  instinctive,  the  sinner  can  feel  the  force  of  that 
motive  and  make  use  of  it.  That  motive  is  neither  holy  nor  sfn- 
ful ;  it  is  indifferent,  because  from  it  either  a  holy  or  a  sinful  be- 
ing may  act.  Out  of  all  his  other  acts,  the  sinner  is  to  single 
one — desire  of  happiness,  self-love,  and  the  mind  is  to  be 


THE  KINGDOM  OP  REDEMPTION.          567 

fixed  upon  it  until  the  future  life  with  all  its  weal  and  woe  is 
brought  into  vision.  In  order  that  this  may  be  done,  one  other 
point  is  necessary,  viz.,  that  the  tide  of  evil  desires  be  sus- 
pended, and  the  sinner  is  to  do  this  in  order  that  he  may  fix  his 
attention  on  his  future  happiness  so  that  it  may  act  properly. 

On  this  representation  we  make  the  following  remarks: 
(1)  The  proposal  that  one  part  shall  be  separated  from  the 
mind's  complex  acts  would  cause  the  acts  to  cease  to  be  com- 
plex, and  would  present  a  single  motive  before  the  mind.  That 
would  be  all  that  the  mind  had  in  view.  The  desire  of  happi- 
ness will  be  a  single  motive,  not  a  part  of  the  complex  acts  of 
the  soul.  (2)  When  thus  singled  out  and  separated  as  the  sup- 
posed effectual  motive,  it  must  have  either  a  holy  or  sinful  char- 
acter. It  is  inconceivable  that  it  should  remain  indifferent.  As 
it  is  in  his  mind,  it  must  be  either  holy  or  sinful,  because  his 
own  mind  is  in  a  certain  moral  state  all  the  time,  and  we  cannot 
single  out  a  motive  from  the  mind's  activities,  and  say  that  that 
motive  in  the  mind  shall  remain  indifferent,  any  more  than  one 
can  cast  a  stick  into  a  current,  and  say  that  it  shall  remain  sus- 
pended. The  accompanying  project,  therefore,  of  suspending 
this  sinful  current,  so  that  we  may  get  an  indifferent  motive,  is 
impossible  to  be  achieved.  No  one  ever  did  or  can  do  it. 
(3)  The  proper  exhortation  in  the  case  is,  that  the  mind  fix  its 
attention  not  upon  its  own  act  at  all,  but  upon  God,  and  so  turn 
to  Him.  Attention  is  to  be  fixed  not  on  what  the  soul  is  doing, 
but  upon  God;  not  upon  one's  own  interest,  but  upon  the  divine 
command;  not  on  one's  own  will,  but  upon  that  to  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  influences;  and  so  alone  can  the  effectual  and  suffi- 
cient motive  be  found.  The  thoughts  must  be  upon  the  object. 

II. — Another  mode  of  exhortation  used  is,  that  the  sinner 
shall  perform  certain  acts,  which  are  in  themselves  indifferent, 
with  his  present  motives:  shall  read  the  Bible,  attend  church  and 
religious  meetings,  etc.,  with  the  motives  which  at  present  influ- 
ence him. — This  is  an  exhortation  which  cannot  be  consistently 
allowed.  These  acts  are  right,  but  with  sinful  motives  and  de- 
sires one  cannot  perform  them  aright.  All  that  can  be  said  is. 
that  in  doing  this  he  is  more  likely  to  be  brought  under  the  in 


568  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

tiuences  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  acts  may  be  urged,  not 
as  if  they  themselves  would  lead  to  regeneration,  but  simply  in 
the  view  that  possibly  by  these  acts  the  soul  may  come  under 
renewing  influences.1 

III. — The  exhortation  to  the  sinner  then  should  be  this:  to 
perform  any  arid  all  acts  with  a  right  spirit.  He  should  never 
be  led  to  feel  that  he  can  be  content  or  at  peace,  or  that  he  is 
not  in  great  and  increasing  guilt,  until  his  acts  are  performed  in 
a  right  spirit.  Thus  almost  any  of  the  acts,  to  which  it  is 
natural  to  exhort  him,  may  be  the  turning-point.  Any  act  per- 
formed in  the  right  spirit  is  the  turning-point.  It  may  be  the 
reading  of  the  Scriptures,  but  it  is  more  generally  prayer,  and 
this  is  the  safest  exhortation,  because  there  the  soul  is  brought 
face  to  face  with  God.  The  two  elements — the  divine  and  the 
human — coalesce:  the  human  element  turns  to  God. 

§  3.   Of  the  Truth  as  a  means  of  Regeneration. 

The  representations  respecting  the  truth  as  a  means  of  re- 
generation apply  in  their  strictness  to  adult  regeneration,  or  to 
the  regeneration  of  those  who  have  come  to  an  age  to  under- 
stand the  truth. 

1.  The  truth  is  almost  always  the  means,  the  occasional  cause, 
of  regeneration,  in  what  precedes  and  leads  to  the  regenerative 
act.     The  Spirit  employs  the  truth  in  the  previous  processes. 

2.  It  is  also  the  fact  that  the  truth  is  before  the  mind  as  mo- 
tive in  choosing,  in  the  act  of  choice  in  which  the  conversion  is 
consummated — yet  it  is  not  there  as  merely  abstract,  intellectual 
truth,   but  as  truth  in  the  Scriptural  sense,  in  its  fulness  and 
power.     It  is  not  truth  as  belonging  to  my  intellect  alone,  but 
as  revealed  by  God  and  accompanied  by  the  divine  illumination 

1  There  was  a  long  controversy  between  the  old  Calvinists  and  the  Hopkin- 
sians  on  this  point.  The  former  were  in  the  habit  of  exhorting  the  sinner  to  read 
the  Bible,  go  to  church,  etc.— and  there  the  exhortations  stopped,  with  the  im- 
plication that  G-od  might  come  to  his  aid.  The  Hopkinsians  made  the  staple  of 
their  exhortation  to  be,  the  call  to  immediate  repentance  on  the  ground  of  imper- 
ative obligation.  They  did  not  say  that  a  person  should  not  employ  these  means, 
but  that  he  should  not  rely  upon  them,  and  that  the  exhortation  should  be  as  to 
the  right  spirit  in  which  they  should  be  performed.  This,  more  than  anything 
else,  was  the  source  of  the  success  of  the  Hopkinsians  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century.  It  had  also  formed  a  part  of  the  discussion  which  led  to  the 
first  schism  of  the  Presbyterian  church  in  1740. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          569 

3.  The  truth  then  may  be  called  the  chief  occasional  cause 
of  regeneration  in  the  ordinary  course  of  divine  providence. 

4.  The  Scriptures  thus  represent  it:  James  i.  18;  1  Pet.  i.  23; 
1  Cor.  i.  18;  Eph.  vi.  17;  Heb.  iv.  12. 

5.  Regeneration  by  the  truth  does  not  make  truth  the  efficient 
agency.     God  is  the  ultimate  efficient  agent  in  the  case.     It  is 
the  truth  as  wielded  by  the  Spirit  leading  to  the  choice. 

6.  Truth  in  itself,  bare  and  abstract,  except  as  the  instrument 
of  the  Spirit,  cannot  have  moral  efficacy  sufficient  to  regenerate 
the  soul.     In  the  unrenewed  heart  there  is  no  love  for  the  spe- 
cific truth  of  the  gospel,  but  rather  opposition  to  it.     Truth  as 
moral  suasion  is  inadequate,  as  we  have  seen.     As  a  general 
fact  men  resist  the  truth  and  life. 

7.  In  speaking  of  the  truth  as  a  means  of  regeneration,  we 
should  be  careful  to  use  it  in  its  specific  Scriptural  sense.     The 
Scriptures  never  disjoin  it  from  Christ  and  God  and  the  Holy 
Spirit.     Christ  is  the  Truth.     It  is  truth  in  the  sense  that  truth 
and  reality  are  one — the  truth  proclaimed  and  enforced  by  the 
Spirit  as  a  living  power  unto  salvation.     To  talk  of  man's  being 
renewed  by  the  truth  without  the  Spirit,  is  the  same  as  to  talk 
of  a  man's  being  killed  by  a  sword  when  the  sword  is  in  no- 
body's hands.     There  is  this  connection  between  the  divine  and 
human  agency,  and  we  cannot  separate  the  two. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  EXHORTATION:   MAKE  TO  YOURSELF  A  NEW  HEART.* 

1.  It  is  obligatory.     It  is  an  enforcement  of  the  command 
or  injunction  of  the  divine  law,  that  each  one  should  love  God 
with  all  his  heart. 

2.  It  is  within  the  possible  extent  of  man's  natural  capacities. 
It  is  no  more  than  what  his  capacities  may  reach  unto.     It  is 
within  the  compass  of  natural  ability,  using  natural  ability  in  the 

1  Ezek.  xviii.  31. 


570  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

sense  of  the  possible  extent  of  man's  natural  capacities, — not  as 
what  the  will  of  man  itself  may  do  without  the  other  faculties, 
not  as  power  to  the  contrary,  but  what  is  in  the  possibility,  as 
to  extent,  of  man's  constitution  and  faculties. 

3.  The  only  obstacle  in  the  way  of  obeying  the  invitation 
and  command  is  in  the  sinner's  depraved  heart. 

4.  The  exhortation  does  not  assert  or  imply  that  the  sinner 
can  comply  without  divine  grace.     It  no  more  implies  that  a  sin- 
ner can  do  this  without  divine  grace,  than  that  a  Christian  can. 

5.  The  exhortation  must  be  interpreted  in  harmony  with  the 
petition,  "Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  0  God;  and  renew  a  right 
spirit  within  me."     These  two  are  counterparts. 

6.  The  injunction  must  be  preached  so  as  to  make  men  feel 
the  obligation,  the  necessity,  and  the  reasonableness  of  it. 

7.  It  must  be  so  preached  that  men  shall  feel  that  their  re- 
liance is  not  to  be  upon  their  own  act,  but  upon  divine  grace,  for 
the  doing  of  what  is  enjoined, — so  that  they  shall  yield  to  divine 
grace,  and  not  attempt  the  work  without  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   CONSCIOUS    PROCESSES    OP   THE    SOUL   IN   REGENERATION. 

These  vary  somewhat  according  to  the  particular  state  of  mind 
and  the  previous  education,  and  some  changes  will  be  more 
marked  and  violent,  and  others  more  gradual.  There  will  be, 
usually,  serious  meditation  on  the  truth  of  God ;  the  thoughts 
will  be  called  in  from  the  world  and  fixed  upon  divine  truth ; 
then  there  will  be  a  feeling  of  want,  of  need,  a  feeling  that  the 
soul  lacks  that  which  is  most  important  to  it, — the  sense  of  the 
need  of  coming  into  a  different  moral  state,  of  turning  from  the 
world  and  unto  God.  Accompanying  these  there  will  be  a 
conviction  of  sin,  coming  from  the  view  of  the  sinner's  own  na- 
ture and  character  as  opposed  to  the  divine  holiness,  a  wrest- 
ling of  the  soul  under  that  conviction,  and  that  conviction  rising 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  571 

to  a  sense  of  moral  pollution.  Then,  in  almost-  all  experience, 
there  will  be  found  the  endeavor  to  renew  one's  self,  to  trans- 
form one's  self  into  a  righteous  and  holy  condition  by  one's  own 
strength  and  power.  The  result  will  be  a  feeling  of  helplessness, 
running  back  into  the  main  points  on  which  it  is  grounded,  viz., 
(a.)  The  impossibility  of  atoning  for  the  past  by  one  s  own  works, 
which  will  continue  to  be  a  ground  of  condemnation.  The  help- 
lessness there  is  entire  and  absolute,  (b.)  The  conviction  of 
moral  helplessness.  What  he  would  that  he  does  not,  and  what 
he  would  not  that  he  does.  This  is  what  is  known  as  the  work 
of  the  law,  the  law  as  a  schoolmaster  leading  to  this  condition, 
and  in  this  condition  Christ  is  offered  as  all  that  the  soul  wants, 
the  call  to  turn  and  yield  is  made,  and  the  turning-point  will  be 
the  yielding  to  Christ,  receiving  Him  as  the  personal  Saviour, 
so  that  the  object  before  the  mind  is  Christ. 
Practical  Remarks: 

1.  The  preacher  should  always  be  careful  not  to  intimate  that 
anything  which  precedes  giving  the  whole  soul  to  God  is  right, 
or  can  be  rested  in,  or  affords  any  ground  of  hope.     I.  e.,  in  the 
language  of  the  old  controversy  between  the  Presbyterians  and 
Congregationalists,  "  unregenerate  doings  are  not  to  be  allowed." 

2.  The  preacher  should  likewise  never  say  that  any  or  all 
the  acts  the  sinner  can  perform  can  be  rightly  performed  with- 
out the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     It  must  always  be  claimed  that 
all  that  is  good  is  from  the  moving  of  God.     We  must  ascribe 
all  that  tends  to  renewal  to  the  working  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in 
the  soul.     This  is  the  great  point  of  relief  in  the  preaching  of 
regeneration.     It  is  the  hope  we  have,  that  if  there  are  any  good 
influences  within  the  soul,  this  is  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  that  if  the  sinner  will  yield  to  them  he  may  be  saved, 
There  is  a  co-operation  of  the  human  and  divine  elements,  and 
religious  safety  lies  in  exalting  the  divine  influences,  and  saying 
that  what  the  sinner  has  to  do  is  to  yield  to  those  influences. 
This  gives  a  stronger  basis  to  press  an  exhortation  than  the 
exaltation  of  human  ability  or  of  the  power  to  the  contrary. 

3.  The  guilt  of  remaining  in  a  convicted  state  should  also  be 
enforced.     The  helplessness  which  the  sinner  feels  is  the  proof 


572  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

of  his  guilt.  The  greatness  of  this  helplessness  shows  the  great- 
ness of  his  guilt.  This  was  the  chief  service  of  the  Hopkinsian 
preaching — to  insist  that  the  helplessness  was  guilt. 

4.  The  ability  of  the  sinner  should  be  preached  and  pro- 
claimed so  far  as  to  show  his  guilt  and  the  greatness  of  it,  but 
not  as  the  ground  of  his  reliance  internally.     That  reliance 
must  be  on  God  and  on  divine  grace. 

5.  In  preaching  there  should  be  a  constant  observance  of, 
and  reference  to,  the  great  psychological  law,  that  the  mind  is 
not  to  be  fixed  upon  its  own  acts,  but  on  the  object  in  view 
of  which  it  acts. 

6.  No  precise  order  of  experience  should  be  insisted  upon  as 
absolutely  necessary — no  one  emotion  or  experience  as  the  turn- 
ing-point.    This  may  be  different  in  different  minds.     The  re- 
ceiving of  Christ  and  resting  in   Him  will  be,   after  all,   the 
grand  test. 

7.  The  exhortation  to  the  sinner  should  be,  to  yield,  to  sub- 
mit to  the  divine  influences,  to  come  to  Christ,  to  yield  to  the 
grace  that  comes  from  Christ.     How  he  can  do  this  is  the  last 
question,  and  the  answer  is,  he  can  do  it  by  yielding.     As  to 
the  how,  it  is  in  the  act  itself. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

REPENTANCE. 

This  is  the  human  side.  The  principal  word  translated  re- 
pentance in  our  version  (nerdvota)  signifies  change  of  mind,  the 
process  of  renewal  viewed  from  the  human  side,  and  culminat- 
ing in  the  human  act.  Accompanying  it  there  is  a  feeling  of 
the  evil  of  sin  and  godly  sorrow,  but  these  do  not  make  it.  It 
is  the  act  of  renouncing  the  old  and  putting  on  the  new. 

One  of  the  great  differences  between  the  Roman  Catholics 
and  Protestants  is  on  this  article  of  repentance.  The  whole  of 
Protestant  theology  makes  it  an  inward  work.  In  the  Roman 
Catholic  system  it  is  combined  with  external  works,  and  repent- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          573 

ance  comes  to  have  the  significance  of  doing  penance.  The 
sacrament  of  penance  is  instituted  to  restore  the  grace  of  bap- 
tism lost  by  subsequent  sin.  In  baptism  the  guilt  of  original 
sin  is  taken  away.  If  a  person  sins  after  that,  falls,  I.  e.,  into 
"  mortal  sin,"  the  sinful  state  must  be  amended  by  the  sacra- 
ment of  penance.  In  this,  different  parts  are  distinguished:  Con- 
trition, which  with  most  is  the  imperfect  antecedent  purpose; 
Confession,  which*  must  be  to  the  priest  and  must  be  a  partic- 
ular confession  of  mortal  sins;1  Satisfaction,2  which  is  to  be  by 
meritorious  works,  giving  money  to  the  church,  saying  prayers, 
etc.  The  works  of  supererogation  of  deceased  saints  can  be 
made  over  to  help  in  this  satisfaction ;  then,  finally,  Absolution,3 
as  the  act  of  the  church,  the  judicial  declaration  that  the  soul 
is  free  from  the  guilt  of  these  sins.  So  that  the  simple  Scriptural 
doctrine  of  repentance  runs  through  all  these  processes,  binding 
each  sinner  to  the  church  and  to  its  sacraments. 

§  1.  /SWe  general  Statements  of  the  Protestant  View. 

1.  Repentance  is  an  internal  change. 

2.  As  the  human  side  of  regeneration,  it  implies  regeneration, 
whenever  it  is  real  and  true.     It  implies  that  there  is  in  it  the 
regeneration  of  the   soul.     To  say  that  a  person   can   repent 
without  grace  who  cannot  be  regenerated  without  grace,  is  to 
state  an  anomaly;  for  if  there  be  real  repentance  there  is  regen- 
eration, and  if  a  person  may  repent  of  himself  he  may  regener- 
ate himself. 

3.  Some  of  the  elements  which  are  reckoned  to  repentance — 
as  conviction,  sorrow  for  sin — may  exist  before  there  is  actual, 
conscious  renewal  of  the  soul:  though  if  the  conviction  be  real 
and  godly,  the  soul  in  that  conviction  is  renewed  although  not 
conscious  of  it,  and  there  is  doubtless  often  a  renewal  before 
there  is  peace  in  the  soul. 

1  The  confession  of  venial  sins  is  "useful." 

2  Christ  does  not  free  from  temporal  punishment.     Meritorious  acts  are  coun- 
seled, not  absolutely  required. 

3  Absolution  is  (a.)  not  merely  declaratory,  but  judicial  and  effective,  (b.)  not 
a  prayer,  (c.)  not  conditional  as  to  the  future,  (d.)  in  it  the  priest  represents  God. 
— In  what  goes  before,  however,  if  there  is  not  contrition,  at  least  in  the  form  of 
attrition,  natural  sorrow,  "the  matter  of  the  Sacrament  of  penance  is  wanting,' 
and  the  form—  absolution— does  nbt  avail. 


574  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

4.  Repentance,  in  the  common  usage  of  the  term,  is  the  ex* 
ercise  of  the  soul  iri  view  of  all  sin, — turning  from  it  and  unto 
God;  and  hence,  Christians  should  daily  repent.  Here,  of  course, 
it  is  not  used  in  its  highest,  strictest,  central  sense. 

§  2.  Repentance  should  be  immediate. 

1.  This  is  implied  in  the  Scriptural  exhortations. 

2.  It  is  an  immediate  inference  from  the  impossibility  of  a 
neutral  state. 

3.  It  is  involved  in  the  obligatory  character  of  repentance. 
Duty  obliges  at  every  point  always. 

4.  The  contrary  supposition  would  allow  a  man  to  continue 
in  sin,  more  or  less. 

5.  As  the  turning  from  self  to  God,  it  must  be  immediate. 
Insisting  upon  repentance  being  immediate  does  not  imply 

that  it  can  be  without  grace.  On  the  contrary,  the  most  effect- 
ual preaching  should  ever  imply  the  present  grace  of  God's 
Spirit.  Even  if  there  were  no  grace,  repentance  would  still  be 
a  duty,  because  it  does  riot  surpass  the  extent  of  man's  natural 
capacities,  because  the  only  hindrance  to  it  is  man's  sinful  heart. 

§  3.  Some  special  Works  and  Signs  of  Repentance. 

1.  It  is  in  view  of  the  divine  law, — acknowledging  its  justice 
and  holiness  and  the.justice  of  the  sinner's  condemnation  under  it. 

2.  It  is  not  only  in  view  of  the  law,  but  of  God:  Ps.  li.  4. 

3.  There  is  a  sense  of  the  futility  of  all  the  sinner's  pleas  in 
extenuation  of  his  guilt. 

4.  It  includes  the  sense  of  moral  pollution  which  comes  from 
the  conviction  that  the  sinner  as  a  sinner  loves  the  worst  thing 
in  the  universe. 

5.  It  includes  the  sense  of  one's  helpless  condition,  of  which 
we  have  spoken. 

6.  It  includes  confession  of  sin,  with  petition,  under  the  sense 
that  our  only  help  is  in  God  and  in  his  sovereign  grace. 

7.  It  issues  in,  and  is,  the  turning  to  God,  in  view  of  his  sov- 
ereignty and  grace. 


THE    KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  5*7  5 

BOOK  IV. 

8ANCTIFICATION  AND  PERFECTION. 
CHAPTER  I. 

SANCTIFICATION. 

Sanctification  is  the  carrying  to  completion  the  work  begun 
in  regeneration.  It  is  the  completed  union  of  the  soul  with 
Christ,  so  that  as  face  answereth  to  face,  the  renewed  soul  an- 
swers to  Christ.  Christ  is  said  especially  to  be  made  unto  ua 
sanctification :  1  Cor.  i.  30.  In  short,  sanctification  is  the  work 
of  overcoming  the  old  man  by  the  new.1  It  is  the  victory  of 
the  spirit  over  the  flesh,  of  grace  over  sin.  It  is  putting  on 
Christ,  becoming  wholly  like  Him. 

§  1.   The  Nature  of  Sanctification  according  to  the  Scriptures. 

There  are  two  general  descriptions  in  Scripture:  the  reinstat- 
ing of  the  divine  moral  image,  and  the  becoming  like  to  Christ; 
and  these  two  are  one,  the  perfection  of  our  moral  being.  The 
divine  image  in  man  was  lost  by  the  fall,  so  far  as  the  divine 
image  involves  holiness,  righteousness.  The  whole  of  the  di- 
vine image  is  lost,  because  that  image  comprehends  our  spirit- 
ual capacities  as  our  spiritual  perfections.  The  capacity,  the 
possibility  of  perfection  remains,  notwithstanding  the  fall.  But 
in  the  strict  and  complete  sense  of  the  divine  image,  it  was  lost 
when  original  righteousness  was  lost,  and  it  is  the  reinstating 
of  this  which  is  the  work  of  sanctification. 

But  apart  from  these  general  statements  the  Scriptures  havo 
more  explicit  positions. 

1.  They  represent  sanctification  as  a  work  upon  and  in  the 
human  heart:  Ps.  li.  10.    There  is  a  continued  dependence  on  God. 

2.  As  far  as  the  Persons  of  the  Trinity  are  concerned,  sancti- 
fication is  the  special  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  regeneration  is, 
although  the  whole  Trinity  is  concerned  in  it. 

1  It  is  "the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection  "  (Chalmers). 


576 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


3.  It  is  of  God's  free  grace,  still  and  ever,  not  by  our  merits 
or  deserts. 

4.  Yet  it  is  through  our  agency:  Phil.  ii.  12. 

5.  Sanctification  differs  from  merely  moral  reformation  (a.)  in 
that  it  is  from  God,  and  in  a  peculiar  sense,  of  grace,  (b.)  in  that 
the  whole  course  of  sanctificatioii  implies  our  constant  depend- 
ence on  Christ. 

6.  Sanctification  is  of  the  whole  person, — intellect,  heart,  will; 
the  body  also  becomes  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and,  through 
union  with  Christ,  is  raised  again  glorious  and  incorruptible. 

7.  All  the  means  of  grace  are  means  of  Sanctification :  Faith, 
the  Word,  Prayer,  the  Sacraments. 


§  2.   The  Difference  between  Justification,  Regeneration,  and  San** 
tification. 

L — Justification  precedes: 
is  judicial: 
is  an  act: 
is  once  for  all: 


Sanctification  results; 
is  moral; 
is  a  work; 
is  gradual; 


causes  change  of 
state: 

sins  are  pardoned: 

is  equal  in  all: 

is  from  guilt: 

Christ's  righteous- 
ness is  imputed: 

gives  title  to  hea- 
ven: 


IL — Regeneration  gives 

spiritual  life: 
the  seed: 
the    babe    in 
Christ: 


In 


In 


of 


causes     change 
character; 

sins  are  subdued; 

is  unequal; 

is  from  defilement; 

inherent   righteous- 
ness is  given; 

gives  fitness  for  hea- 
ven. 


Sanctification  gives 

spiritual  growth; 
the  development; 
the  perfect  man  in 
Christ. 


§  3.   Of  good  Works  and  Sanctification. 

(a.)  Good  works  are  involved  in  Sanctification:  Eph.  ii.  10 
(b.)  They  are  both  internal  and  external,  (c.)  Good  works  are 
relatively  such ;  they  are  not  perfectly  good,  unmixed  with  sin. 
(d.)  They  are  necessary:  (1)  As  the  proof  of  faith.  They  are 
not  necessary  to  justification,  but  necessary  to  the  working  out 
of  the  faith  which  justifies.  (2)  They  are  necessary  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  redemption  in  us,  If  there  are  no  good  works. 


THE    KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  £>77 

there  is  no  evidence  of  our  being  Christians.  (3)  They  are  ex- 
pressly commanded  to  believers,  in  the  Bible.  (4)  But  eternal 
life  is  not  merited  by  them.  Eternal  life  is  given  for  Christ's 
sake.  Good  works  fit  us  for  eternal  life.  This  again  is  in  con- 
trast with  the  Roman  Catholic  view,  which  makes  the  merit  of 
good  works  to  be  a  part  of  the  title  to  everlasting  life. 

§  4.   The  Means  of  Sanctification. 

All  the  means  of  grace  are  likewise  means  of  sanctification. 
^1)  The  Word  of  God.  Truth  controls  and  guides  the  sanctifi- 
cation. This  position  is  in  contrast  with  the  pretentious  of  fa- 
natics and  mystics  who  make  their  inward  light  to  be  above  the 
Word.  (2)  Prayer.  In  its  most  general  aspect,  prayer  includes 
praise  to  God,  confession  of  sin,  petition  for  grace,  and  supplica- 
tion for  benefits,  with  submission  to  the  divine  will.  "  Not  my 
will,  but  thine  be  done"  is  the  essence  of  every  petition.  In  a 
more  restricted  sense,  it  is  the  utterance  of  holy  desires  before 
God.  No  prayer  is  possible  except  to  a  personal  God.  Those 
who  pray  otherwise  are  in  a  state  of  reverie  and  not  of  prayer. 
Some  say  that  all  prayer  is  in  works.  While  it  is  true  that  there 
is  no  right  prayer  which  does  not  lead  to  works,  and  that  in 
Avorks  there  may  be  petition,  yet  the  two  things  are  entirely  dis- 
tinct, and  those  who  find  prayer  in  works  are  without  prayer. 

(3)  The   exercise   of  the   virtues   of  the    Christian   character. 

(4)  Works  of  beneficence  and  charity.     (5)  The  observance  of 
the  ordinances  of  the  church,  especially  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lords  Supper. 

As  to  the  Objections  to  Prayer.  These  are  two.  (1)  It  is 
said  that  as  we  cannot  stay  the  course  of  nature,  which  is  uni- 
form, prayer  is  needless  in  respect  to  all  external  objects.  There 
is  a  settled  order  in  regard  to  all  physical  cause  and  effect,  with 
which  prayer  cannot  interfere. — In  regard  to  this:  (a.)  What  is 
meant  by  the  course  of  nature?  It  is  a  certain  order  of  natural 
phenomena,  antecedent  and  consequent,  in  the  natural  world. 
The  formula  for  the  natural  world  is:  The  same  causes,  in  the 
same  circumstances,  will  produce  the  same  effects.  But  when 
prayer  comes  in,  then,  besides  the  causes  in  external  nature,  there 


578  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

may  be  another  cause  introduced.  The  course  of  nature  has 
reference  simply  to  facts.  If  new  influences  come  in,  the  course 
of  nature  is  no  objection,  as  far  as  these  influences  may  go,  be- 
cause a  new  influence  may  produce  a  new  consequence,  even  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  physical  order,  as  the  mere  external  con- 
sequences of  phenomena  may  be  interrupted  by  our  actions.1 
(6.)  This  position  is  still  further  strengthened  by  considering 
that  nature  is  under  and  for  divine  providence.  Nature  is  not 
ultimate.  It  is  guided  by  divine  providence  for  the  ends  of  that 
providence,  and  the  natural  world  is  made  subservient  to  the 
moral  world.  Divine  Providence  may  use  the  same  laws  and 
give  them  different  combinations  and  directions,  in  order  to  se- 
cure moral  ends.  This  must  be  admitted  if  God  and  his  provi- 
dence are  admitted,  (c.)  Any  given  prayer  in  the  course  of 
that  providence  may  be  a  part  of  that  series  of  causes  which 
will  issue  in  certain  effects.  It  may  have  been  appointed  by 
God  in  his  plan.  If  man  can  interrupt  the  course  of  nature,  i.  e., 
can  make  new  combinations,  so  that  what  nature  would  have 
done  is  not  done,  much  more  God  may.  And  if  God  may  in  his 
plan  embrace  the  prayer  of  any  individual  as  one  of  the  causes 
leading  to  certain  effects,  then  there  is  no  objection  at  all,  from 
the  course  of  nature,  to  the  possibility  of  prayer  and  the  answer 
to  prayer.  (2)  The  second  objection  is  made  on  the  ground  of 
the  unlimited  promises  of  Scripture.  This  objection  is  sometimes 
in  the  form  of  an  assertion  as  to  the  prayer  of  faith.  Many  in- 
terpret the  prayer  of  faith  as  unlimited,  on  the  ground  of  the 
promises,  and  then  the  objection  comes,  that  such  prayer  secure 
of  the  answers  would  interfere  with  the  divine  order.  A  strong 
poetic  way  of  stating  it  is,  that  prayer  moves  the  hand  that  moves 
the  world;  but  the  theological  order  would  be,  the  hand  that 
moves  the  world  moves  prayer.  The  promises  in  question  are 
such  as  that  in  Luke  xvii.  6,  which  probably  refers  to  miracu- 
lous works,  and  John  xiv.  13,  14  In  respect  to  such  assurances, 
we  need  to  make  a  distinction  between  a  merely  personal  private 
desire  and  prayer  as  it  is  the  matter  of  the  promises.  The  prom 

1  If  there  were  not  a  roof  to  a  house,  the  rain  would  come  in,  and  in  thip  sens- 
the  course  of  nature  is  interrupted. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          579 

ises  of  Scripture  are  to  be  understood  in  harmony  with  all  the 
rest  of  Scripture.  Promises  are  not  to  give  what  each  individual  j 
may  ask  for  himself,  but  what  is  asked  in  faith  and  in  the  name 
of  Christ.  The  question  then  is,  What  is  real  prayer?  And  — 
here  it  must  be  said:  (a.)  The  soul  of  prayer  is  the  desire  for  the 
union  of  man's  will  with  God's,  (b.)  It  is  based  on  God's  word 
and  promise,  (c.)  It  is  of  the  whole  soul,  expressing  its  inmost 
desire,  (c?.)  It  is  and  must  be  in  trust  and  submission. — The 
prayer  to  which  the  promise  is  given  is  not  the  mere  individual 
wish,  desire,  and  petition,  but  that  wish,  desire,  and  petition  as  a 
part  of  the  plan  of  God,  with  ultimate  respect  to  God's  will  and 
kingdom.  "  In  the  name  of  Christ "  includes  the  meaning,  In  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  "  In  faith  "  includes,  In  submission  to  God.1  _ 

Practical  Suggestions.  (1)  The  habit  of  prayer  should  be  that 
which  leads  us  to  engage  in  it  daily  and  hourly.  /.  e.,  the  state 
of  mind,  in  which  we  are  as  Christians,  should  be  one  of  constant 
supplication,  looking  to  God  for  his  guidance  and  blessing. 
While  there  should  be  stated  seasons  for  prayer,  prayer  should 
go  with  us  all  the  day.  (2)  It  is  well  to  cultivate  a  habit  of 
ejaculatory  petition^',  e.,  in  any  pauses  of  intercourse  or  of  study, 
to  look  up  to  God  with  petition  for  guidance  and  blessing.  / 


CHAPTER    II. 

PERFECTIONISM. 

The  question  here  is  not  whether  it  is  conceivable  that  a 
man  might  become  perfect.  It  is  not  what  is  the  possible  ex- 
tent of  our  natural  capacities,  aided  by  grace — whether  they  might 
not  attain  unto  perfection ;  for  that  theoretically  must  be  con- 
ceded. Nor  is  it  on  the  point  of  our  obligation  to  be  perfect. 

1  In  the  well-known  case  of  Monica,  the  mother  of  Augustine,  whose  prayer 
that  her  son  might  not  go  to  Borne  on  account  of  the  dissipation  there,  was  an- 
swered by  his  going  to  Rome  and  being  converted,  we  have  a  striking  instance  of 
the  answer  to  the  soul  and  purport  of  prayer.  Spiritual  blessing  is  the  soul  and 
ultimate  aim  of  every  particular  prayer. 


580  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

The  question  is  simply  this:  Are  we  authorized  by  experience 
and  the  word  of  God  to  expect  perfection  in  this  life  ?  Perfec- 
tion is  nothing  less  than  the  complete  sanctitication  of  the  whole 
man — in  the  intellect,  heart,  and  will,  so  that  he  is  in  all  hia 
powers  perfectly  conformed  to  the  will  of  God,  so  that  even  the 
spontaneous  desire  for  what  is  sinful  is  excluded.  It  may  be 
defined  positively  and  negatively,  i.  e.,  as  entire  conformity  to 
the  will  of  God,  and  as  entire  freedom  from  sin. 

§  1.   The  older  Theories. 

1.  The  Pelagian.     This  asserts  that  man's  native  capacities 
and  powers  are  not  injured  by  the  fall.     They  may  be  weakened, 
but  are  not  morally  injured.     There  is  no  sin  but  actual  trans- 
gression, and  man  is  fully  able  to  keep  the  divine  law.     The 
existence  of  divine  grace  is  granted  as  a  matter  of  fact,  but  it  is 
made  to  be  external  rather  than  internal.     Though  it  is  not  the 
general  fact  that  men  do  it,  yet  it  is  true  that  they  may  live  free 
from  sin.     In  respect  to  the  prayer,  "Forgive  us  our  debts," 
Pelagius  said  it  did  not  apply  to  saints. 

2.  The  Arminian.     This  makes  perfection  or  complete  sane- 
tification  to  be  loving  God  as  much  as  He  requires  us  to  do  in 
the  gospel.     It  is  a  perfection  which  is  simply  proportionate  to 
our  present  powers,  and  to  the  present  demands  of  the  law  upon 
us  under  the  gospel.    Under  the  gospel  dispensation,  the  demands 
of  the  law  are  relaxed.     It  does  not  demand  perfect  holiness, 
but  as  much  as  man  can  attain  to,  with  his  present  powers  in 
their  present  state.     The  older  Arminians  do  not  claim  absolute 
sinlessness,  but  a  state  in  which  there  should  be  no  voluntary 
transgression.     Imperfections  may  remain,  but  these  they  call 
infirmities.1 

3.  The  Eoraan  Catholic.     This  is  connected  with  their  gen- 
eral view  of  the  sacraments  and  of  sacramental  grace.     That 
original  sin,  which  is  the  heritage  of  the  human  race,  is  taken 
away  in  baptism.     The  demand  made  upon  those  baptized  and 

i  Fletcher  disclaims  perfection  as  demanded  by  the  Paradisiacal  law,  and  views  it 
as  only  love  to  Christ  constantly  in  the  soul;  whatever  else  comes  tip  in  the  soul 
being  regarded  as  imperfection  simply,  because  it  is  not  of  the  nature  of  the  pal- 
ing principle  in  the  heart 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          581 

thus  received  into  the  church  is,  obedience  to  all  external  moral- 
ity. There  is  also  a  higher  grade  of  virtue  which  may  become 
the  possession  of  some  elect  ones.  That  higher  grade  is  found 
in  yielding  obedience  to  the  "  evangelical  counsels  "  in  the  New 
Testament.  Voluntary  poverty,  separation  from  the  world,  etc., 
are  declared  to  be  a  higher  degree  of  virtue  and  to  be,  in  the 
eminent  sense,  religion.  And  by  such  obedience  not  only  may 
perfection  be  reached,  but  also  works  of  supererogation  may  be 
performed. 

§  2.   The  'modern   View  of  Perfectionism. 

Some  forty  years  ago  this  was  the  subject  of  earnest  discus- 
sion among  our  Western  churches.  This  view  differs  from  the 
Pelagian,  in  allowing  for  a  depravity  of  nature,  though  it  is  not 
decided  whether  that  shall  be  called  a  moral  state  or  a  physical 
condition.  It  differs  from  the  Arminian  view,  in  denying  gra- 
cious ability.  The  ability  relied  upon  is  not  gracious,  but  man's 
natural  capacity.  The  perfection  to  which  man  can  attain  con- 
sists in  this:  the  choice  of  the  highest  good,  and,  as  the  result 
of  that  choice,  the  full  and  perfect  discharge  of  all  our  duty. 
The  perfection,  however,  is  ultimately  to  be  resolved  into  the 
choice.  It  is  a  choice  which  is  according  to  our  ability,  in  the 
present  circumstances,  as  we  now  are.  The  perfection  is  not  an 
absolute,  but  a  relative  perfection,  a  perfection  which  is  just  on 
a  line  with  our  present  ability,  so  that  the  ability  becomes  the 
measure  of  our  obligation,  instead  of  the  obligation  being  the 
measure  of  the  ability.  The  main  point  in  the  theory,  how- 
ever, is  this,  that  there  is  no  moral  character  in  anything  in 
man,  but  the  choice  of  an  ultimate  end, — that  all  except  that 
does  not  come  under  the  sphere  of  what  is  moral.  The  whole 
of  character  is  in  the  governing  purpose.  In  the  discussions  in 
respect  to  obligation  and  ability,  matters  have  taken  a  singular 
turn  at  different  periods  of  the  controversy.  The  old  New  Eng- 
land position  said  that  man  had  both  natural  ability  and  moral 
inability,  that  the  obligation  is  the  prime  thing  in  the  case, 
and  that  the  obligation  is  to  the  full  possible  extent  of  our  natu- 
ral capacity.  In  the  later  speculations,  natural  ability  is  taken 


582  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

to  amount  to  this:  what  a  man  can  do  in  his  depraved,  diseased, 
and  corrupt  condition,  just  as  it  is;  and  the  view  carried  out 
comes  to  the  position  that  there  is  no  moral  inability  at  all,  that 
that  is  a  vicious  phrase,  and  the  perfection  is  that  which  man 
can  attain  by  his  natural  powers. 
I. — The  Arguments  for  this  View. 

1.  On  the  ground  of  ability.     The  command  to  be  perfect 
implies  the  ability,  and  not  only  the  possibility  but  the  actuality 
of  perfection.     We  are  as  much  bound,  on  the  ground  of  the 
command,  to  preach  perfection  as  we  are  to  preach  repentance 
to  the  sinner.     Perfection  is  as  much  attainable  by  the  Christian 
as  repentance  by  the  sinner. — If  the  doctrine  of  natural  ability 
be  held  without  the  check  of  moral  inability,  we  do  not  see  but 
that  this  argument  is  valid.     Those  who  hold  that  the  sinner 
can  repent  without  divine  grace  must,  on  the  same  ground, 
preach  absolute  perfection,  and  that  it  is  attainable  in  the  case 
of  every  Christian.     The  only  escape  from  this  conclusion  is 
by  modifying  the  statement  of  natural   ability  in    regard   to 
repentance. 

2.  From  the  promises  of  God.     It  is  said  that  God  promises 
the  perfection  of  his  children. — But  it  is  to  be  considered  that 
the  promises  of  God  are  conditional,  and  run  through  all  time. 
They  are  not  fixed  to  any  particular  time,  or  to  this  life  dis- 
tinctively.    They  relate  to  complete  and  final  sanctification. 

3.  From  the  provision  of  the  gospel.     It  is  said  that  this 
is  such  for  sanctification  or  entire  holiness,  that  we  may  expect 
it  in  this  life. — The  argument  proves  too  much.     The  fulness  of 
the  provision  would  not  be  our  warrant  for  expecting  entire 
sanctification,  any  more  than  the  general  atonement  is  a  warrant 
for  expecting  a  universal  redemption.     The  provision  in  the 
divine  order  is  always  beyond  what  it  is  applied  unto. 

4  From  prayer.  We  are  to  pray  for  entire  sanctification. — 
Our  prayer,  however,  is  to  be  with  trust.  We  are  warranted,  on 
the  ground  of  the  promise,  in  expecting  entire  sanctification,  but 
that  does  not  involve  that  it  will  come  to  us  in  this  life. 

5.  An  appeal  to  facts — as  certified  by  Scripture. — This  is  tc 
be  viewed  as  part  of  the  statement  under  the  next  head. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.         583 

6.  From  Scripture.  1  John  ii.  5;  iv.  17;  iii.  5  and  seq. ;  Col. 
li.  10. — These  passages  however  set  forth  what  is  the  true  nature 
or  character  of  Christians,  what  it  is  they  are  regenerated  for, 
i.  e.,  for  entire  perfection,  and  do  not  declare  or  announce  the 
fact  that  Christians  themselves  are  at  the  present  time  perfect, 
although  they  ought  to  be  so.  The  declaration  is  in  respect  to 
the  idea  of  the  Christian,  rather  than  of  the  actual  Christian  life 
or  experience.  The  Apostle  John  says,  "  If  we  say  that  we  have 
no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves"  (1  John  i.  8),  and  the  other  pas- 
sages are  to  be  interpreted  in  harmony  with  this.  He  proceeds 
to  give  the  true  idea  of  a  Christian,  but  he  does  not  say  that 
Christians  are  actually  conformed  to  this.  The  case  in  which 
perfection  would  be  most  likely  to  be  found,  if  anywhere,  is  that 
of  the  Apostle  Paul,  and  it  is  said  that  he  claims  perfection  foi 
himself  in  such  passages  as  Acts  xx.  26;  Gal.  ii.  20;  1  Cor.  ii.  16; 
2  Cor.  i.  12;  1  Thess.  ii.  10;  2  Tim.  i.  3.— But  these  are  to  be 
taken  as  statements  of  Paul's  general  position  and  character.  The 
"holily  and  justly  and  unblameably  "  of  1  Thess.  ii.  10,  is  in  reference 
to  his  conduct  in  the  world,  and  not  to  his  inward  sanctification. 
The  same  Apostle  says,  Phil.  iii.  12 :  "Not  as  though  I  had  already 
attained,  either  were  already  perfect."  Advocates  of  perfec- 
tionism interpret  him  as  speaking  here  of  the  resurrection,  and 
understand  him  to  say  that  he  had  not  yet  attained  unto  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  But  that  was  a  very  needless  thing 
for  him  to  say.  Other  passages  cited  are:  Phil.  iii.  15 — but 
here  "perfect"  means,  thoroughly  instructed  in  divine  things; 
1  Cor.  ii.  6 — but  here  again  "perfect"  means,  having  knowl- 
edge of  divine  things.  Luke  i.  6  would  be  a  much  stronger 
passage.  If  any  one  was  perfect,  Zacharias  was ;  but  even  per- 
fectionists interpret  this  of  outward  conformity,  because  it  was 
a  perfection  under  the  old  economy. 

II. — Objections  to  Perfectionism. 

1.  On  the  ground  of  the  radical  theory  of  this  modern  per- 
fectionism, if  any  Christians  are  perfect,  all  are  perfect.  Perfec- 
tion, they  say,  consists  in  the  choice  of  the  highest  good,  and 
whatever  else  there  may  be  in  man  is  not  of  a  moral  sort.  Then, 
as  all  Christians  have  chosen  the  highest  good,  and  as  all  else 


584  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

that  is  in  them  is  not  moral  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  ques- 
tion, it  follows  that  all  are  perfect. 

2.  Even  if  anybody  was  perfect,  he  could  not  prove  the  fact. 
Who  knows  his  own  sinfulness?     Who  can   know   his  secret 
sins  ?     The  one  fact  of  secret  sins  alone  should  prevent  any  one 
from  asserting  that  he  is  perfect.     There  may  be  sins  which  are 
sinful  in  the  eye  of  God,  which  are  not  disclosed  to  us  in  their 
vileness.1 

3.  The  effect  of  the  doctrine,  as  held  and  preached,  is  to  lower 
the  standard  of  the  divine  law.     In  order  to  make  the  doctrine 
consistent,  it  is  necessary  to  bring  down  that  law  to  our  present 
actual  capacities,  and  in  doing  this  it  is  lowered  and  made  to  be 
different  in  its  demands  upon  each  one. 

4.  The  doctrine  has,  in  the  same  way,  a  tendency  to  lower 
our  view  of  the  nature  of  sin.     Its  constant  tendency  is,  to  lead 
us  to  look  for  sin  only  in  deliberate  acts,  in  volitions. 

5.  The  Scriptural  argument  against  it  is  very  strong:  Job  ix. 
20;  Ps.  xix.  12;  James  hi.  2;  John  iii.  7,  where  a  process  is  indi- 
cated; Phil.  iii.  12;  1  John  i.  8;  Gal.  v.  17-23;  Heb.  xii.  7;  Ps.  xvii. 
15,  showing  where  perfection  is  to  be  looked  for;  and  especially, 
Eom.  vii.,  throughout  which  chapter  Paul  speaks  in  the  present 
tense,  and  has  for  the  object  of  his  argument  to  show  that  un- 
der and  by  the  law  no  human  being  can  be  justified  or  obtain 
peace  or  salvation.     Even  to  such  a  Christian  as  Paul,  the  law  is 
such  a  condemning  power  as  is  set  forth  in  verses  13,  14.    We 
judge  that  in  this  chapter  neither  the  regenerate  nor  the  tin- 
regenerate  is  distinctively  and  exclusively  in  view,  but  that 
the  chapter  contains  this  general  position,  that  no  member  of 
the  human  family,  even  one  who  is  saved  by  Christ,  can,  when 
judged  by  the  divine  law,  obtain  peace  by  conformity  to  its 
requirements. 

6.  The  manifest  faults  of  Christians  in  this  life  are  arguments 
against  this  doctrine.     The  tendency  of  those  who  hold  it  is 
to  palliate  these  faults,  and  to  say  that  they  do  not  come  under 

1  It  may  be  supposed  that  if  ever  any  one  approached  perfection,  it  was  the 
wife  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  yet  her  holy  exercises  were  mingled  with  the  strongesi 
wrestlings  with  sin. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  585 

the  term  sin — they  are  excusable  imperfections.  Some  who  have 
been  wild  and  fanatical  have  said  that  for  them,  as  Christians, 
there  is  no  sin.  Some  perfectionist  communities  have  run  riot 
in  the  indulgence  of  fleshly  lusts,  on  this  ground. 

7.  The  tendency  of  the  doctrine  is  still  further  to  lead  to  re- 
liance upon  conformity  to  law,  and  not  upon  the  pure  grace  of 
God  as  the  ground  of  peace  and  hope.     The  very  claim  of  per- 
fection  implies   that   we   measure  ourselves   by  the  law  as  a 
standard,  and  that  withdraws  us  relatively  from  simple  trust  in 
Christ. 

8.  The  doctrine  rests  in  theory  upon  a  delusive  psychology, 
viz.,  that  in  one  act  or  one  governing  moral  state  is  the  whole 
of  character,  and  that  everything  else  which  is  in  us  does  not 
belong  to  character,  and  does  not  come  under  the  categories 
either  of  sin  or  holiness.     This  is  against  Christian  conscious- 
ness, and  is  practically  delusive  and  false. 

9.  Christian  experience,  as  a  whole,  is  opposed  to  it.     We 
have  the  confessions  of  the  best  men  in  the  church,  that  they 
have  had  to  struggle  with  sin. 

10.  Opposed  to  it  likewise  are  the  prayers  for  perfection  which 
are  enjoined  upon  us  in  Scripture  as  our  duty :  1  Thess.  iii.  10-13 ; 
v.  23;  Heb.  xiii.  21;  Matt.  vi.  12,  in  respect  to  which  it  may  be 
asked,  Into  what  state  in  this  life  can  a  Christian  come  in  which 
the  prayer  "  Forgive  us  our  debts"  may  not  be  repeated  ? 

11.  The  Scripture  represents  Christ  as  the  only  perfect  man. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PERSEVERANCE    OP    THE    SAINTS. 

The  doctrine  of  the  saints'  perseverance  is  this:  that  those 
who  have  been  really  and  truly  renewed  will  persevere  unto  the 
end  through  a  progressive  sanctification.  This  sanctification  is 
the^work  of  God.  The  perseverance  is  through  divine  grace, 
The  doctrine  expresses  a  fact  and  not  a  mere  theory.  Persever 


586  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

ance  is  presented  in  Scripture  as  a  duty  incumbent  on  the  saints 
There  is  also  contained  a  promise,  on  condition  of  the  perform- 
ance  of  the  duty,  and  the  promise  culminates  in  the  assurance 
of  the  fact  that  all  true  saints  will  perform  the  duty,  and  so  per- 
severe  to  the  end. 

§  1.  Arguments  in  favor  of  the  Doctrine. 

1.  The  promises  of  God  to  Christ  as  our  Head:  John  vi.  37, 
39;  xvii.  2,  12. 

2.  God's  promises  to  his  people :  Ps.  xxxvii.  28 ;  Jer.  xxxi.  31 ; 
xxxii.  40;  1  Pet.  i.  5. 

3.  From  the  nature  of  grace.     It  is  implied  in  grace  that 
there  is  an  everlasting  covenant,  and  is  so  described:  Isa.  Iv.  3; 
Jer.  xxxii.  40.     It  is  exhibited  as  showing  God's  great  love  to 
the  human  race,  and  a  gift  which,  from  its  nature,  He  would  not 
be  likely  to  withdraw.     There  is  a  union  with  Christ  on  the 
ground  of  the  covenant,  and  from  his  love  who  shall  separate  us  ? 

4.  From  the  nature  of  the  eternal  life  which  is  promised. 
Christ  is  to  give  eternal  life  to  as  many  as  the  Father  gives  Him. 
Now  what  is  eternal  life?     It  is  the  continuance  to  eternity  of 
what  is  given  here  in  the  seed  and  the  germ.     The  life  already 
begun  is  an  eternal  life:  1  John  v.  11-13;  John  iii.  16. 

5.  From  Christ's  intercession:    1  John  ii.  1;  John  xvii.  24, 
where  the  "  I  will "  is  emphatic,  implying  Christ's  purpose. 

6.  It  is  implied  in  the  doctrine  of  decrees  as  including  elec- 
tion.    Heb.  vi.  17-19.     "  The  immutability  of  his  counsel." 

§  2.  Explanations  of  the  Doctrine. 

It  involves  two  elements :  on  the  one  hand,  God's  agency  in 
preserving;  on  the  other  hand,  the  saints'  agency  in  perse- 
vering. Neither  of  these  by  itself  is  the  doctrine,  but  both  to- 
gether constitute  it.  It  does  not  imply  that  salvation  is  given 
without  conditions,  but  that  the  conditions  of  salvation  are 
to  be  fulfilled.  It  is  not  meant  that  true  believers  shall  bo 
saved  at  any  rate,  without  their  own  continued  activity.  The 
doctrine  is  that  of  the  perseverance  of  the  saints,  that  their 
activity  shall  be  continued.  It  does  not  imply  that  true  be- 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  587 

lievers  may  not  fall  into  sin. — It  asserts  that  though  they  may 
fall  into  sin,  they  will  not  abide  therein  and  be  lost :  Matt.  xxiv. 
24, — if  possible,  the  elect, — but  it  is  not  possible.  Phil.  i.  6. — 
Believers  are  not  to  be  saved  because  they  deserve  salvation :  it  is 
of  grace. — Nor  yet  is  the  doctrine  that  those  about  whom  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  are  Christians  will  be  saved,  but  that 
those  whom  God  has  truly  renewed  will  be. — In  order  then  to 
disprove  the  doctrine,  it  must  be  shown  that  some  real  saints 
have  apostatized, — not  that  some  church  members  have,  or  some 
apparent  saints,  but  some  whom  God  has  called. 

§  3.   Objections  to  the  Doctrine. 

Obj.  I. — From  passages  of  Scripture  representing  apostasy  as 
possible.  The  argument  here  is  unsound,  in  that  it  infers  a  reality 
from  a  possibility.  Ezek.  xviii.  24  is  a  statement  of  possibility 
and  consequence.  John  xv.  2  is  to  be  understood  of  such  as 
are  united  to  Christ  simply  externally,  and  do  not  receive  of  the 
sap  of  the  vine.  Their  not  bearing  fruit  is  a  proof  that  they  are 
not  really  united  to  Christ.  The  sense  of  Gal.  v.  4  is,  that  any 
who  depend  on  the  law  for  justification  cannot  rely  upon  grace. 
Their  depending  on  the  law  shows  that  they  have  not  a  part  in 
the  grace  which  alone  can  save  them.  In  the  parable  of  The 
Virgins,  the  five  who  were  foolish  probably  represent  those  who 
make  false  professions,  rather  than  apostates.  The  strongest  pass- 
age is  Heb.  vi.  4  seq.  This  is  a  statement  of  an  impossibility.  In 
case  those  once  enlightened  should  fall  away,  there  is  no  possibility 
of  their  being  brought  again  to  repentance.  This  is  to  be  taken 
a?  literally  true.  If  any  one  does  that,  he  cannot  be  saved.  The 
door  of  salvation  will  be  shut  to  him  entirely.  But  the  passage 
does  not  declare  what  is  needed  in  order  to  prove  the  objection, 
and  so  disprove  the  doctrine, — that  any  who  have  been  thus  en- 
lightened have  actually  fallen  away.1  Heb.  x.  29 ;  2  Pet,  ii.  20,  21, 
are  general  warnings,  and  do  not  include  the  point  necessary  to 
refute  the  doctrine.  In  Rev.  xxii.  19  "taking  away  his  part 

i  In  the  sense  in  which  the  Methodists  hold  to  falling  away  and  subsequent 
restoration,  this  passage  is  directly  against  them,  for  it  says  that  if  any  do  thus  fall 
away,  they  cannot  be  renewed. 


588  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

out  of  the  book  of  life  "  is  to  be  understood  of  the  part  which 
he  would  otherwise  have  had — not  of  what  he  actually  had. 

Obj.  II. — On  the  ground  of  free  agency.  Man,  being  free, 
may  fall  away.  But  here,  again,  all  that  can  be  deduced  from 
free  agency  is  possibility,  while  what  must  be  proved  in  order 
to  refute  the  objection  is  actuality.  It  is  admitted  that  falling 
away  is  possible  so  far  as  man  is  concerned:  the  doctrine  is  that, 
through  God's  faithfulness,  it  is  certain  that  the  falling  away 
will  not  occur. 

Obj.  III. — On  the  ground  of  the  effects  of  the  doctrine.  It 
is  said  that  it  tends  to  make  Christians  careless.  But  the  doc- 
trine is  that  of  the  perseverance  of  the  saints  in  a  holy  life,  and 
if  Christians  are  over  confident  and  careless,  it  is  in  spite  of  the 
doctrine  and  against  its  precise  terms.  It  is  a  perversion  of  the 
doctrine  to  put  it  in  the  form  which  Cromwell  is  said  to  have 
done — that  he  knew  he  would  be  saved  because  he  was  once 
a  Christian ;  because  if  a  man  lose  present  evidence,  it  casts  a 
doubt  on  his  previous  experience. 

Obj.  IV. — That  Adam  and  the  angels  fell,  although  holy. 
This  is  no  objection  to  the  doctrine,  for  we  do  not  know  that 
any  promise  was  made  to  them  that  they  should  be  kept.  The 
promise  is  to  those  who  are  redeemed  and  regenerated  out  of 
a  sinful  state. 

Obj.  V. — On  the  ground  of  certain  instances  mentioned  in 
Scripture,  as  Hymeneus  and  Philetus,  Alexander,  etc.  The 
probability  is  that  these  were  not  real  Christians. 

Obj.  VI. — The  instances  of  David  and  Peter  are  cited.  But 
these  prove  the  doctrine:  in  spite  of  their  sins  they  persevered, 
so  far  as  we  know. 

Practical  Eemarks.  (1)  No  past  experience  of  the  Christian 
can  be  taken  as  absolute,  as  giving  him  the  unqualified  certainty 
that  he  will  be  saved.  (2)  The  evidence  of  any  one  being  in 
a  gracious  condition  must  be  found  chiefly  in  his  continuous 
sanctification,  in  his  growing  in  grace  and  in  the  knowledge 
of  Christ.  (3)  The  doctrine  calls  upon  us  in  preaching  to  em- 
phasize the  danger  of  deception  in  relation  to  one's  being  in  a 
gracious  state.  (4)  The  doctrine  is  a  source  of  great  comfort 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  589 

to  those  who  are  in  spiritual  despondency.  It  may  be  the  means 
of  raising  up  those  who  are  bowed  down.  (5)  The  ground  of 
the  doctrine  is  in  God's  promise  and  grace,  and  not  in  what 
man  of  himself  can  be  or  do:  and  therefore  the  application  of 
the  doctrine,  or  our  right  to  apply  it,  will  be  in  proportion 
to  our  reliance  upon  the  divine  promise  and  grace.  (6)  Warn- 
ings to  Christians  are  useful  and  necessary.  The  doctrine  does 
not  prevent  our  uttering  the  most  solemn  warnings  on  the  dan- 
ger of  falling  away.  (7)  The  assurance  of  perseverance  can  be 
had  only  by  those  who  persevere.  The  perseverance  itself  is 
the  only  ground  for  putting  ourselves  individually  under  this 
doctrine.  Rom.  ii.  7;  2  Pet.  i.  10;  1  Cor.  ix.  27;  Heb.  iv.  1. 


PART     II. 

THE  UNION  BETWEEN  CHEIST  AND  HIS  CHURCH. 

[The  author  gave  no  lectures  upon  this  part  of  the  theolog- 
ical system.  His  general  view,  however,  can  be  seen  in  the 
following  statements,  which  are  drawn  from  other  parts  of  his 
manuscripts.] 

§  1.  Of  the  fundamental  and  germinant  Idea  of  the  Church  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

We  derive  this  most  fully  from  Eph.  i.  22,  23.  The  church 
is  the  body  of  which  Christ  is  the  soul,  the  organism  of  which 
He  is  the  life,  the  outward  form  of  which  He  is  the  inward  and 
formative  principle.  It  is  said  to  be  the  fulness  of  Him  who 
filleth  all  with  all  things.  That  is,  the  church  is  filled  up  by 
and  with  Christ,  with  all  his  blessings,  all  his  grace,  and  all  his 
glory.  And  Christ  being  the  one  who  in  the  universe  filleth  all 
things  with  all  things,  being  the  Word,  the  Creator,  the  Head 
and  the  End  of  all,  His  church  filled  with  Him  is  filled  with  all. 
The  plenitude  of  spiritual  being  and  beatitude  is  poured  forth 
from  the  eternal  throne  where  He  ever  reigneth  in  regal  do- 
minion, and  vitalizes,  shapes,  and  guides  that  church,  wherever 
found,  in  heaven  or  on  earth.  The  church  is  the  veritable  mys- 
tical body  of  Christ.  The  union  of  soul  and  body  is  at  once  the 
most  mysterious  and  the  most  patent  fact  about  man's  own  na- 
ture. The  sacred  image  of  God  is  not  only  appareled  in,  but 
united  with,  the  fragile  vestments  of  mortality,  and  the  immortal 
soul  doubtless  shapes,  fills,  and  governs  the  transient  tabernacle. 
And  even  thus  it  is  with  Christ  in  relation  to  his  church.  He 
who  filleth  all  things — who  made,  preserves,  and  governs  the 
universe,  also,  and  in  an  eminent  sense,  fills  his  church,  replen 
ishing  it  with  the  abounding  riches  of  his  grace,  and  imparting 
to  it  that  spiritual  life  which  is  the  source  and  pledge  of  a  bliss 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          591 

ful  immortality.     This  is  indeed  the  divine  side  of  the  church, 
but  then  the  divine  side  is  the  real  side. 

This  intimate  alliance  of  the  church  with  its  Head  is  set  forth 
and  reiterated  in  varied  modes  throughout  the  Scriptures,  and 
always  in  images  that  express  the  closest  espousal,  the  most 
tender  and  yearning  love :  Isa.  xliii.  1-7 ;  xlix.  15 ;  John  xv.  5 ; 
Eph.  v.  25,  29.  Expositors  in  all  ages  have  taken  the  Song  of 
Songs,  which  depicts  as  does  no  other  lyric  the  intense  longing 
of  the  most  chaste  earthly  affection,  and  applied  all  its  oriental 
luxuriance  in  a  supereminent  and  spiritual  sense  to  celebrate  the 
hymeneal  union  of  the  celestial  Bridegroom  and  the  terrestrial 
bride,  whom  the  Bridegroom  himself  ransomed  and  clothed  in 
white  raiment,  that  she  might  share  in  his  ineffable  and  divine 
love.  And  of  earthly  wedlock  itself,  the  most  logical  of  the 
apostles  tells  us  that  it  is  only  a  fugitive  image  of  the  eternal 
union  between  the  Redeemer  and  the  redeemed.  And  this  is 
the  real  basis,  and  so  gives  us  the  true  formative,  organic  idea 
of  the  Christian  church:  it  is  the  body  of  Christ,  the  fulness  of 
Him  that  filleth  all  with  all. 

§  2.  Of  the  Nature  of  the  Church  as  seen  in  the  Light  of  this 
radical  and  central  Idea. 

I. — The  distinction  between  the  invisible  and  the  visible 
church.  This  distinction  is  not  Protestant  alone,  but  essentially 
Christian.  The  vital  union  of  the  soul  with  Christ  is  the  forma- 
tive element  of  the  church.  Wherever  that  is  found,  there  the 
church  is ;  where  that  is  not,  the  true  church  is  not.  And  this 
union  is  essentially  spiritual,  and  so  invisible.  The  invisible 
church  is  the  true  church — the  only  church  to  which  belong 
prophecy,  promise,  victory,  and  full  and  final  redemption.  This 
and  this  alone  has  the  three  grand  marks  or  notes  of  the  church 
of  Christ — catholicity,  infallibility,  and  sanctity. 

II. — The  unreal  and  nugatory  character  of  all  prelatical  claims. 
The  church  is  made  up  of  believers;  the  visible  church  is  made 
up  of  all  who  are  baptized;  the  invisible  church  of  all  who  be- 
lieve, whether  baptized  or  not.  The  indwelling  Spirit  of  Christ 
alone  makes,  alone  can  make,  a  Christian.  A  bishop  cannot  dc 


592  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

it;  a  minister  cannot  do  it;  baptism  cannot  do  it.  They  may 
help  in  it:  but  the  work  itself  is  God's  work,  his  divine  preroga- 
tive. If  man  could  do  it,  there  would  be  no  need  of  God;  and 
if  God  does  it,  man  is  only  an  instrument  and  not  the  real  agent. 
The  pretence  that  anything  external,  outward,  and  visible  can 
make  the  internal  and  spiritual,  that  any  outward  form  and 
means  can  directly  impart  inward  and  spiritual  grace,  is,  in  the 
last  result  and  analysis,  a  materialistic  hypothesis.  It  amounts 
to  saying  that  mind  can  be  the  product  of  matter.  The  believer 
must  always  be  left  in  the  position  of  coming  directly  to  Christ 
for  salvation.  What  is  external  may  be  a  means,  a  help,  a  stim- 
ulus, but  can  never  be  that  mystic  bond  which  unites  the  soul 
with  its  Lord  and  Master.  This  principle  cuts  deep  and  sharp, 
but  it  is  the  irresistible  logic  of  the  Divine  Logos — that  Christ 
may  be  all  in  all. 

III. — This  principle  must  shape  our  theory  as  to  the  nature 
and  functions  of  the  visible  church  organization.  Any  attempt 
to  locate  the  essence  of  the  church  in  bishops  or  even  in  the  minis- 
try, or  in  presbyteries  or  associations  and  the  like,  is  utterly  in- 
consistent with  the  radical  idea  and  fact  of  the  Christian  system. 
The  Spirit  of  God  does  not  dwell  peculiarly  or  exclusively  in  bish- 
ops, ministers,  or  presbyteries ;  and  where  the  Spirit  acts,  there 
is  the  true  church-building  power.  Any  particular  visible  church 
is  a  company  of  believers  (and  their  baptized  children)  united 
by  covenant,  where  the  Word  is  truly  preached,  and  the  Sacra- 
ments, as  occasion  serves,  are  duly  administered.  As  to  its 
particular  constitution,  much  is  left  by  the  Word  of  God  to 
the  fitness  of  times  and  places — the  general  principles  being 
duly  cared  for.  These  points  are  not  finally  settled  by  any  jure 
divino  warrant.  The  local  church  is  doubtless  the  unit  of  the 
system;  and  the  principle  of  unity,  among  those  who  have  the 
same  faith  and  order,  must  aisc  in  some  way  be  secured.  But 
when  any  such  organization  calls  itself,  by  way  of  emphasis,  the 
church,  it  emphasizes  the  wrong  word,  and  so  changes  the  vital 
sense  of  the  other  word.  It  is  an  arrogant  claim,  without  Script- 
ural warrant,  especially  when  it  puts  the  essence  of  the  church 
in  some  figment  of  an  apostolical  succession,  which  no  texts  can 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          593 

prove  or  history  verify.  The  church  is  made  by  Christ  and  not  by 
man.  Where  Christ  dwells,  there  and  there  only  is  the  church — . 
for  it  is  his  body. 

IV. — From  the  same  principle — that  the  church  is  the  body 
of  Christ — it  follows,  that  the  church  has  and  guards  his  truth, 
that  it  jealously  preserves  and  defends  whatever  is  essential 
and  fundamental  in  Christian  doctrine,  as  well  as  what  is  need- 
ful for  the  Christian  life.  For  in  Him  are  hid  all  the  treasures 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge.  He  is  the  King  of  Truth.  The 
doctrines  that  center  in  Him  are  not  mere  theories,  abstract 
opinions,  but  they  express  the  essential  facts  about  his  person 
and  work.  The  church  can  no  more  thrive  without  them,  than 
morality  can  prosper  without  precepts  and  prohibitions.  The 
attempt  to  separate  Christian  doctrine  from  the  Christian  life 
is  vain.  The  two  are  as  vitally  connected  as  are  the  principle 
of  life  and  the  formative  principle  in  the  case  of  every  seed  or 
embryo.  In  the  last  analysis,  perhaps,  the  truth  is  a  reflex  of 
the  life,  because  the  life  is  a  manifestation  of  the  truth.  The  re- 
lation is  akin  to  that  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  Spirit;  the  Spirit 
works  through  and  by  the  word ;  we  are  begotten  of  the  truth. 

Hence  all  churches  have  felt  the  need  of  public,  authorized, 
and  authentic  confessions  of  faith,  as  a  declaration  of  truth,  a 
protest  against  error,  a  bond  of  union,  and  a  means  of  instruction 
and  growth.  And  in  the  midst  of  the  incessant  conflicts  of  mod- 
ern denominations,  especially  in  our  own  land,  and  of  the  insur- 
gent pressure  of  all  forms  of  error  and  infidelity — to  call  upon 
us  to  strike  down  our  symbols  is  like  calling  on  an  army  to  strike 
down  its  flag  in  the  face  of  the  foe.  No  one  can  overestimate 
the  influence  of  such  a  document,  for  example,  as  the  Westmin- 
ster Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism.  It  has  made  our  church 
members  strong  in  definite  thought  upon  the  weightiest  themes. 
It  has  given  them  a  consistent  body  of  divinity  in  the  midst  of 
the  fluctuations  of  opinion.  It  has  been  a  spiritual  and  catholic 
bond  of  union,  especially  in  connection  with  the  theological 
treatises  of  the  elder  Edwards,  between  two  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  powerful  bodies  of  Christians  in  our  country,  the  Con- 
gregational and  Presbyterian,  differing  indeed  on  sundry  un- 


594  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

essential  points  of  church  order,  but  radically  one  in  the  common 
professed  faith.  It  has  done  more  to  shape  and  train  this  land 
for  its  high  evangelical  mission  than  anything  else  except  the 
inspired  Word  of  God,  which  is  the  only  divine  rule  of  faith  and 
practice. 

The  church,  as  the  body  of  Christ,  has  the  deposit  of  divine 
truth  as  its  most  sacred  charge  to  keep,  defend,  and  propagate. 
Its  very  life  depends  upon  its  faithfulness.  To  yield  it  is  apostasy. 

V. — The  principle  that  the  church  is  the  body  of  Christ  in- 
volves  also  this:  that  the  church  contains  within  itself  the  law 
and  the  means  of  its  own  growth.  As  a  body,  an  organized  so- 
ciety, in  the  midst  of  the  human  race,  if  it  is  to  live,  it  must  also 
grow.  And  unless  it  is  to  remain  virtually  stationary,  its  growth 
must  be  always  gaining  upon  its  loss.  And  there  are  two  modes 
in  which,  in  the  divine  order,  this  growth  is  to  advance ;  it  grows 
from  within,  by  birth  and  infant  baptism,  and  from  without,  by 
conversion  of  the  unbaptized  (or  by  reclaiming  those  who  have 
forfeited  the  grace  which  baptism  was  designed  to  signify  and 
seal).  Apart  from  the  Scriptural  and  historical  argument  for  in- 
fant baptism,  its  fitness  and  necessity  result  from  the  very  idea 
and  nature  of  the  church,  as  a  form  of  human  life,  of  human 
history,  of  human  society.  In  a  sinful  race,  the  church  is  an 
exotic.  That  it  may  take  root  and  thrive,  it  needs  to  make  use 
of  the  strongest  ligaments  that  bind  man  to  man.  The  closest 
earthly  bond,  uniting  the  physical  and  moral,  is  found  in  the 
parental  and  filial  relation.  The  family  is  the  native  root  of  the 
state;  no  less  should  the  church  be  rooted  in  it.  It  is  fitting 
that  the  mightiest  human  ties  should  be  enlisted  in  the  service 
of  the  church, — that  the  church  should  begin  in  the  household. 
And  this  is  one  reason  for  infant  baptism. — We  must  consider 
also  the  fact,  that  by  their  natural  descent  from  the  first  parents 
of  the  human  race,  all  mankind  are  involved  in  the  penal  evils 
of  the  first  apostasy.  The  law  of  sin  and  death,  which  rules  in 
the  race,  is  mighty  and  universal  because  it  takes  in  the  law  of 
birth.  If  now  an  economy  of  redemption  is  to  be  provided,  it  ia 
eminently  fitting  that,  so  far  as  is  possible,  the  same  law  should 
be  turned  into  the  service  of  redemption.  Why  should  sin  have 


THE    KINGDOM     OP    REDEMPTION.  595 

all  the  advantage  in  appropriating  the  deepest  instincts  of  the 
human  soul  ?  Why  may  not  redemption,  as  well  as  sin,  be  con- 
nected in  some  way  with  the  family  constitution  ?  Why  may 
not  the  church  receive  the  full  benefit  of  those  native  and  hal- 
lowed ties  by  which  the  successive  generations  of  men  live  ono 
life  ?  Your  children  were  unclean,  argues  Paul,  if  you  were  un  ? 
believing,  but  because  you  believe  now  are  they  holy.  And 
here  is  the  profound  meaning  of  the  Abrahamic  covenant.  / 

The  children  of  a  believing  parent  or  parents  are  to  be  bap- 
tized.    Baptism  is  the  sacrament  whereby  the  subject  of  it  is  \ 
received  into  and  made  a  member  of  the  visible  church.     Bap- 
tized children  are  members  of  the  church  even  as  all  children 
belong  to  the  country  in  which  they  are  born ;  they  are  under  its 
watch  and  care,  to  be  trained  for  its  service.     The  name  of  God  j 
has  been  named  upon  them.     They  are  included  in  the  cove- 
nant.    The  covenant  antedates  and  is  the  ground  of  the  bap- 
tism;  and  this  baptism   makes  them  members  of  the  visible, 
not  necessarily  of  the  invisible,  church.     Baptism  incorporates 
into  the  external  form  and  order  of  the  body  of  Christ.     Re-  | 
generation  is  not  external  but  internal,  so  that  there   is  no 
proper  baptismal  regeneration,  any  more  than  there  is  a  material 
soul.     Regeneration  may  or  may  not  accompany  the  rite  which 
is  its  sign  arid  seal ;  it  is  not  tied  to  it. 

There  are  three  theories  on  this  point.  One,  the  Baptist, 
view  is,  that  baptism  is  to  be  applied  only  to  the  regenerate;  a 
person  must  be  regenerated  before  he  is  baptized.  Another,  the 
sacramental  theory,  says,  that  baptism  is,  or  involves,  regenera- 
tion ;  baptism  regenerates  and  so  admits  into  the  visible  church. 
The  third  view,  that  of  the  Reformed  churches,  neither  confounds  V 
baptism  and  regeneration,  as  does  the  latter,  nor  sunders  them, 
as  does  the  former;  it  recognizes  the  fact,  that  baptism,  on  the 
ground  of  the  parental  relation,  admits  the  child  into  the  external 
order  of  the  church,  and  that  it  is  also  a  sign  and  seal  of  the  in- 
grafting into  Christ,  who  said,  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto 
Me.  And  many  of  the  Reformed  Confessions  expressly  admit, 
that  the  grace  of  baptism  is  not  tied  to  the  moment  of  time  when 
it  is*  administered ;  but  that  whenever  conversion  takes  place,  it 


596  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

is  connected  with  the  grace  signed  and  sealed  in  the  baptismal 
covenant. 

The  church  is  to  grow  from  without  as  well  as  from  within. 
By  the  faithful  preaching  of  the  Word  and  all  other  duly  ap- 
pointed and  wise  methods,  it  is  to  strive  to  win  those  that  have 
wandered  from  it,  or  thoso  that  never  knew  it. 

VI. — The  church,  being  the  body  of  Christ,  is  rightfully  in- 
dependent of  the  civil  power  or  the  state,  in  respect  to  its  proper 
spiritual  functions,  whether  these  concern  doctrine,  order,  or  dis- 
cipline. The  true  relation  of  the  church  to  the  state  is  the  un- 
solved problem  of  human  history.  The  Hebrew  nation  identified 
the  two ;  for  it  was  a  theocracy.  The  early  Christian  church  had 
no  recognized  relation  to  the  state;  for  it  was  a  church  in  the 
catacombs,  though  in  the  catacombs  it  undermined  the  throne 
of  the  Caesars.  The  mediaeval  Roman  church  tried  to  solve  the 
problem  by  so  enlarging  the  spiritual  power  as  to  bring  princes 
and  nations  under  its  domination;  but  in  doing  this,  it  became 
corrupt,  despotic,  and  anti-Christian.  Modern  Protestant  Europe 
has  tried  to  solve  the  problem  by  establishing  national  churches; 
but  this  brings  the  church  into  pecuniary  and  political  depend- 
ence upon  the  powers  that  be.  The  heart  of  the  present  con- 
flicts of  Europe  is  in  this  struggle;  England  is  now  passing 
through  it:  Scotland's  Free  Church  Presbyterians-  have  done 
manful  battle  against  this  Erastianism.  In  this  country  our 
Puritan  fathers  attempted  in  some  sort  a  revival  of  the  old  Jew- 
ish theocracy ;  but  the  course  of  events  and  our  Revolution  dis- 
solved this  unchristian  marriage,  by  which  the  church  lost  its 
inherent  rights,  while  the  state  had  too  much  to  do.  And  the 
influence  of  this  separation  is  seen  and  felt  in  the  beneficent  and 
increased  activity  and  power  of  both  church  and  state,  each 
having  its  specified  and  proper  functions. 

VII. — The  principle  that  the  church  is  the  body  of  Christ 
leads  to  the  position  that  his  kingdom  must  have  ultimate  uni- 
versality and  supremacy.  He  who  filleth  all  with  all  must  needs 
fill  his  own  body  with  all  the  riches  of  wisdom,  grace,  and  glory. 
The  vision  of  the  redeemed  church  as  the  body  of  Christ  and  of 
the  resplendent  glories  of  its  final  consummation  is  at  once  tho 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          597 

most  ideal  and  the  most  real  of  all  the  hopes  and  prophecies  of 
the  future.  That  to  which  the  church  is  destined  is  a  fulness 
of  wisdom,  of  faith,  and  of  love.  Of  wisdom:  for  when  we  know 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  we  know  all  other  truth  aright.  Rea- 
son and  faith  are  at  one.  Of  faith:  that  faith  which  allies  the 
soul  to  God,  that  justifies  the  soul,  that  gives  the  victory  over 
the  world.  Of  love:  such  as  binds  together  all  holy  beings  and 
makes  a  universal  brotherhood,  an  eternal  kingdom,  the  love  which 
is  the  sum  and  last  name  of  all  the  virtues,  and  abideth  forever. 
And  because  this  fulness  of  the  church  is  a  fulness  of  wisdom, 
faith,  and  love,  it  also  must  be  a  fulness  in  power  and  dominion. 
The  most  inspiring  hope  for  the  human  race  is  in  the  sublime 
victories  of  Christ's  kingdom.  All  power,  said  our  Lord,  has 
been  given  unto  me,  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  and  this  imperial 
claim  to  universal  dominion  has  been  going  into  fulfilment  ever 
since.  In  comparing  the  church  with  other  forms  of  organized 
social  life,  we  see  that  every  human  empire,  state,  republic,  shall 
and  must  at  last  pass  away,  and  that  the  church  of  Christ  is  the 
only  institution  which  is  to  pass  uridissolved  through  the  gates 
of  death.  This  church  is  the  only  form  of  human  society  that 
has  existed  in  the  world  from  the  beginning:  it  has  seen  the 
downfall  of  the  hoary  despotisms  of  the  East;  it  witnessed 
the  youthful  glories  of  Greece  and  also  its  decline;  it  was  in 
being  when  Romulus  built  the  walls  of  Rome,  and  was  mightier 
still  when  the  last  Roman  Emperor  was  driven  from  the  eternal 
city;  it  assisted  in  the  formation  and  also  in  the  destruction  of 
the  Germanic  Empire;  it  laid  the  foundations  of  the  civilization 
of  France.  England,  Russia,  and  America;  it  has  given  all  the 
strength  they  have  to  all  these  nations:  they  have  prospered  in 
proportion  as  they  have  served  Christ's  kingdom,  and  if  they 
will  not  obey  the  law  of  Christ,  they  are  like  to  be  dashed  in 
pieces  or  crumble  in  decay. — All  this  is  not  theory  but  historic 
fact.  The  prophecy  is  on  the  basis  not  only  of  God's  word,  but 
also  of  all  the  past  facts  of  the  annals  of  our  race:  it  is  of  the 
consummation  of  what  has  been  going  on  from  the  beginning, 
the  complete  outworking  of  the  one  principle,  that  the  church 
is  the  body  of  Christ,  the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  with  all. 


PART     III. 

THE  CONSUMMATION  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION 
IN  TIME  AND  IN  ETEENITY.     THE  ESOHATOLOGY. 


CHAPTER    I. 

OP   DEATH   AND   IMMORTALITY. 

§  1.  Death. 

As  waking  and  sleeping  mark  our  temporal  life,  so  death 
and  the  resurrection  are  spoken  of  in  regard  to  the  eternal  life : 
John  xi.  13;  Ps.  xiii.  13.  The  departed  are  called  souls  in  Scrip- 
ture: Rev.  vi.  9;  xx.  4;  Ps.  xlix.  19.  Hence,  death  is,  separation 
of  soul  and  body.  The  violence  of  the  rupture  is  the  fruit  of 
sin.1  Yet  it  is  introductory  to  another  state.2  Its  chief  terror 
for  man  lies  in  its  being  the  symbol  of  future  penalty.3 

§  2.   Of  Immortality. 

I. — Scriptural  Arguments. 

1.  The  Old  Testament  view.  Some  Socinians  interpret  the 
Old  Testament  as  denying  immortality,  or  as  not  containing  the 
doctrine.  Warburton,  in  his  Divine  Legation  of  Moses,  endeav 
ored  to  construct  the  system  on  that  basis.  His  argument  is  that 
Moses  had  and  must  have  had  a  divine  mission,  because  he  did  not 
enforce  his  religion  by  the  rewards  and  sanctions  of  a  future 
life.  The  intimations  of  immortality  are  undoubtedly  less  full 
and  definite  in  the  Old  Testament  than  in  the  New;  but  they 
increase  in  definiteness  in  the  progress  of  the  Old  Testament 
dispensation.  Christ  against  the  Sadducees,  Matt.  xxii.  23-33, 
uses  an  argument  which  implies,  if  it  implies  anything,  the 

1  "Der  Tod  1st  nicht  der  rein  negative  abstracte  Gegensatz  des  Lebens,  er  ist 
der  positive,  concrete  Gegensatz  desselben: .  .  .  .  er  ist  Aufldsung  des  gottgesetzten 
Sein."     (Delitzsch,  Apologetik,  s.  133.) 

2  "  Appropinquante  morte  anima  multo  est  divinior."     (Cicero.) 

s  The  fear  of  death,  when  dying,  is  rare.     (Sir  Benj.  Brodie,  Psychol.  Inq's* 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          599 

revelation  of  a  future  life  in  the  Old  Testament.  "  God  is  not 
the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  That  alone  would  be 
sufficient.  The  translation  of  Enoch,  Gen.  v.  24,  supposes  a 
continued  existence.1 

There  are  the  taking  away  of  Elijah,  2  Kings  ii.,  and  the 
miracles  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  restoring  the  dead,  1  Kings  xvii. ; 
2  Kings  iv.  Whence  could  the  soul  return  ?  The  vivification 
of  the  dead,  Ezek.  xxxvii.,  "  implies  knowledge  of  the  resurrec- 
tion." Isa.  xiv.  9;  Ps.  xvii.  15;  xlix.  15;  Ixxiii.  24,  .recognize 
immortality.  There  are  also  passages  which  imply  and  involve 
the  notion  of  a  resurrection,  which  of  course  implies  immortality. 
Isa.  xxvi.  19 ;  Dan.  xii.  2 ;  Job  xix.  25  (this  is  a  contested  pass- 
age; some  refer  it  to  the  resurrection;  the  least  that  can  be  made 
of  it  is  confidence  in  God's  vindication,  not  merely  in  the  present, 
but  in  a  future  life) ;  Eccl.  xii.  7. 

2.  The  New  Testament  view.  Here  there  is  no  doubt  about 
immortality.  Matt.  x.  28;  John  xi.  25;  2  Cor.  v.  8,  are  specimens 
of  the  testimony. 

II. — Philosophical  Argument. 

[Only  the  heads  of  argument  are  given.] 

(1)  The  consensus  gentium.  It  is  the  presumption  among  all 
nations.  (2)  The  simplicity  of  the  soul  takes  away  any  counter 
presumption.  (3)  The  moral  argument:  (a.)  Retribution,  which 
is  not  completed  in  this  life.  (&.)  The  educability  of  man:  his 
powers  are  not  completely  unfolded.  His  highest  powers  as  a 
moral  being  are  not  reached  in  this  life.  His  is  an  incomplete 
destiny,  if  there  is  not  an  immortality.  He  has  been  made  in 
vain  as  to  the  ultimatum  of  his  existence,  (c.)  In  the  distinct 
conscious  personality  of  man.  there  is  the  strongest  metaphysi- 
cal ground  for  the  position  of  his  immortality.  Brutes  have  not 
that  personal  moral  being.  They  have  individualized  existence, 
but  not  moral  personality.  And  so  far  as  analysis  can  reach, 
this  is  absolutely  simple.  To  this  may  be  added  the  natural 
longing  of  mankind  for  the  continuance  of  existence,  which  is 
inexplicable  if  man  is  not  to  live  forever.  (4)  There  is  a  moral 

1  Warburton  finds  difficulty  in  disposing  of  this  case.  He  suggests  that  Moses 
knew  about  Enoch  and  kept  it  veiled  from  the  people. 


600  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

system ;  tnere  is  a  God;  He  will  bring  the  system  to  its  complete- 
ness:  hence,  immortality. 

§  3.  Annihilation. 

The  theory  of  annihilation  has  been  brought  forward  in  mod- 
ern times,  especially  in  connection  with  the  theory  of  future 
punishment.  It  has  been  supposed  to  do  away  with  some  of 
the  difficulties  of  that  doctrine.  The  position  has  been  taken 
that  the  impenitent  dead  are  annihilated,  and  that  death  spoken 
of  in  relation  to  them  means  a  literal  cessation  of  being.  As  far 
as  the  Scriptures  are  concerned,  the  whole  plausibility  of  the 
position  arises  from  the  use  of  the  word,  death.  It  sometimes 
means  a  cessation  of  conscious  being  in  a  certain  condition. 
This  is  applied  analogically  to  future  existence.  There  is  no 
instance,  however,  in  which  any  other  word  can  be  found  which 
implies  this  absolute  cessation  of  being.  And  against  this  rep- 
resentation, and  in  favor  of  the  ordinary  view  of  death,  in  the 
future  life, — that  it  implies  suffering,  all  the  passages  that  prove 
di  stinct  future  punishment  stand.  Matt.  xxv.  31-46.  The  parallel 
in  verse  46  implies  the  continued  existence  of  both  righteous 
and  wicked,  and  what  is  asserted  is,  bliss  for  the  one  and  pun- 
ishment for  the  other.  The  parallel  would  not  hold  at  all,  if, 
with  the  wicked,  it  were  to  be  a  cessation  of  all  being.  More- 
over, the  very  notion  of  punishment  and  suffering  which  is  in- 
volved in  the  use  of  the  word  fire,  verse  41,  implies  continued 
consciousness.  So  the  description  of  the  judgment,  2  Cor.  v.  10, 
implies  perpetuity  of  being.  In  Rom.  ii.  6-11,  the  expressions, 
tribulation  and  anguish,  cannot  be  taken  at  all  for  annihilation. 
In  Rev.  xxii.  11,  the  continuance  of  moral  pollution  implies  the 
continuance  of  conscious  being. 

Other  arguments  adduced  for  annihilation  are  simply  theo- 
retical and  metaphysical  possibilities:  e.  </.,  that  the  soul  is  not 
naturally  indestructible,  that  God  could  annihilate  it.  That 
may  be  granted,  but  the  question  is  not  one  of  possibility,  but 
of  fact;  and  there  is  nothing  better  settled  in  Scripture  than  that 
death  means  penal  suffering.1 

1  See  Pres.  Bartlett,  Theory  of  the  Extinction  of  the  Wicked,  New  Eiiglander, 
Oct.  1871.    Also,  Life  and  Death  Eternal. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF    REDEMPTION.  601 

§  4.   Objections  to  Immortality. 

Obj.  I. — From  the  analogy  of  the  vegetable  and  animal 
world.  Vegetables  die ;  they  lose  not  only  their  present  form, 
but  the  distinctive  principle  of  life  is  apparently  evaporated, 
when  they  cease  to  be.  So  of  the  animal  creation.  There  is  no 
evidence  of  the  continued  existence  of  the  animal  soul.  On  this 
basis  an  analogy  is  framed;  if  other  living  beings  thus  die,  man 
may. — The  analogy,  granting  it  the  fullest  application,  would 
hold  only  in  respect  to  the  material  portion  of  man — what  might 
be  called  the  animal  soul  in  man.  The  power  of  the  analogy  as 
to  any  further  application  is  broken  by  the  fact  that  man  is  also 
a  moral,  personal,  spiritual  agent,  which  the  brutes  are  not,  and 
it  is  entirely  unwarrantable  to  apply  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
sphere  an  analogy  which  has  place  only  in  the  lower. 

Obj.  II. — From  the  decay  of  the  faculties  in  old  age. 

As  we  come  to  the  term  of  being  here,  the  faculties  appar- 
ently decline  in  vigor. — On  this  point  what  is  said  in  Butler's 
Analogy  is  fair  and  conclusive.  The  faculties  of  the  bodily 
constitution  decay,  i.  e.,  the  body  decays.  The  means  of  exer- 
cising the  soul  in  this  world  die  out.  That  is  all  that  can  be 
proved.  As  far  as  the  higher  faculties  of  the  soul  are  concerned 
— its  spiritual  discernment,  its  reasoning  powers — all  that  most 
concerns  man  as  a  spiritual  being,  the  facts  are  not  according  to 
the  statement.  That  decays  which  is  to  be  laid  aside.  Still 
further,  most  of  the  human  race  die  before  any  such  change  is 
at  all  apparent.  The  large  majority  die  in  infancy;  very  few  live 
to  the  decline  of  their  faculties;  and  any  such  argument  would 
at  the  best  have  a  very  limited  application. 

Obj.  III. — Immortality  is  a  fact,  and  cannot  be  proved  by  mere 
reason. — All  that  we  attempt  to  do  by  the  use  of  reason  is  to 
attain  a  probability  and  moral  certainty.  Everything  looks  that 
way  as  far  as  reason  is  concerned.  We  do  not  establish  it  as  a 
fact  by  reasoning,  but  as  a  moral  certainty,  in  view  of  which  wo 
are  to  act.  As  far  as  it  is  a  question  of  fact,  we  appeal  to  that 
which  establishes  the  fact,  the  testimony  of  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles— the  revelation  of  God. 

Obj.  IV. — It  is  said  that  as  far  as  the  moral  argument  goes,  its 


602  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

demands  are  met  by  the  continued  existence  of  the  race, — that 
it  would  only  prove  the  continued  existence  of  a  race  of  moral 
beings  here,  and  does  not  reach  to  the  conclusion  of  a  personal 
immortality,  and  that  any  judgment  upon  individuals  is  not 
fair.  Judgment  upon  men  is  simply  their  character  handed 
down.  This  is  the  general  pantheistic  position  of  Fichte,  Strauss, 
etc.  A  moral  argument  for  immortality  is  granted,  but  is  re- 
solved into  the  immortality  of  the  race.  The  judgment  is  made 
to  be  the  moral  judgment  of  posterity  upon  those  who  have  gone 
before. — But  this  is  doing  away  with  the  proper  sense  of  moral 
retribution,  which,  in  its  specific  form,  is  the  rendering  to  each 
according  to  his  deserts.  To  resolve  it  into  the  retributions  of 
human  opinion  is  to  do  violence  to  the  utterances  of  conscience. 
The  righteous  deserve  more  thon  a  good  name,  and  the  wicked 
more  than  a  bad  name. 

Obj.  V. — It  is  said  that  the  longing  for  immortality  is  satis- 
fied by  such  continued  fame  among  men. — But  that  is  to  dis- 
connect the  longing  for  immortality  from  personal  being  and 
personality,  and  when  this  is  done,  the  essence  of  the  longing 
is  destroyed.  What  men  desire  and  long  for  is,  continued  ex- 
istence, not  that  they  may  be  spoken  of  after  death.  This  sug- 
gestion is  from  the  pantheistic  policy  of  resolving  specific 
doctrines  into  general  ideas.1 


CHAPTER  II. 

OF    THE    INTERMEDIATE    STATE. 

By  the  intermediate  state  is  meant  the  state  of  departed 
souls  between  death  and  the  resurrection.  That  there  is  such  a 
state,  all  believe  who  believe  in  the  resurrection  and  final  judg- 
ment. The  differences  of  opinion  are  as  to  the  character  of  the 

1  This  is  the  whole  of  the  skill  of  the  pantheistic  reconstruction  of  Christian 
truth.  As  it  deals  with  the  Christian  doctrine  of  immortality,  so  it  does  with  the 
doctrine  of  redemption.  That  is,  the  doctrine  of  the  redemption  of  the  individ- 
ual soul.  The  pantheist  says,  it  is  the  redemption  of  the  soul  from  its  lower  ancl 
sensual  form  of  existence,  bringing  it  into  its  higher  spiritual  relations,  etc. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          603 

state  itself:  chiefly,  in  controversy  with  the  Romanists,  whether 
it  is  of  a  purgatorial  character ;  also  in  part  in  controversy  with 
those  who  maintain  the  sleep  of  souls ;  and  also  in  part  there  is 
involved  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  repentance  for  those 
who  die  impenitent. 

§  1.  Historic  Fads  as  to  the  Doctrine. 

In  the  Old  Testament  the  general  name  for  the  place  of  de- 
parted souls  is  Sheol ;  in  the  New,  Hades.  It  is  represented  in 
other  forms  of  expression  as  the  place  to  which  the  fathers  are 
gathered,  and1  as  the  under-world.  It  is  sometimes  used  in  con- 
trast with  heaven.  The  departed  are  in  a  state  where  the  dead 
are  not  yet  in  a  blissful  condition,  but  one  of  comparative  dark- 
ness and  silence.  In  the  later  Jewish  speculations,  after  the 
Maccabees,  we  find  a  division  of  this  under- world  into  the  two 
abodes  of  Gehenna,  a  place  of  torment,  and  Paradise — or  being  in 
Abraham's  bosom — a  place  of  happiness.2  In  the  time  of  the  early 
Christians,  next  after  the  Apostolic  age,  we  find  in  Marcion  the 
first  definite  statements,  with  the  avowal  of  the  position  that 
Christ  went  to  the  under-world  and  preached.  Subsequently, 
Irenseus  and  Tertullian  began  to  say  that  the  object  of  Christ's 
going  to  the  grave  was  to  preach  to  the  just  patriarchs,  etc.,  who 
had  not  known  fully  of  salvation,  but  had  died  with  only  a  dim 
knowledge  of  Christ.  These  views  are  soon  connected  with  the 
phraseology,  liiribus  patrum,  liiribus  infantum,  L  e.,  a  restricted 
abode  'of  the  fathers  who  died  not  having  known  Christ  fully, 
and  of  infants  who  died,  not  being  yet  redeemed,  but  in  a  con- 
dition in  which  they  would  receive  Christ  when  offered  to  them. 
The  object  of  Christ's  going  was  to  reveal  himself  to  them,. 
That  going  was  not  yet  connected  with  the  notion  that  those 
who  died  in  iniquity  could  be  redeemed  by  Christ's  labors  among 
them.  The  simple  view  was,  that  there  were  those  who  did  not 
know  Christ,  but  awaited  the  proclamation  of  Him.  Clement 
of  Alexandria  and  Origen  extended  the  doctrine  so  as  to  include 
the  Gentiles  and  Christ's  announcement  of  himself  to  them  ic 

1  As  in  the  Egyptian  mythology. 

«  See  Dr.  Geo.  Campbell,  "The  Four  Gospels,"  Prelim.  Diss.  VI.,  PartIL 


604  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Hades.1  In  the  process  of  development  in  the  third  century, 
the  doctrine  becomes  somewhat  enlarged;  it  is  extended  so  as  to 
represent  Christ  descending  into  the  grave  in  order  to  have  a 
personal  contest  with  Satan,  and  to  rescue  souls  that  were  held 
captive.  Some  thought  that  Satan  did  not  yet  know  about 
Christ's  having  made  satisfaction  for  sin,  and  that  Christ  an- 
nounced it  in  the  contest.  Augustine,  in  the  fifth  century, 
though  receiving  the  opinion  that  Christ  goes  to  the  under- 
world, makes  no  reference  to  the  possibility  of  any  repentance 
there.  Punishment  and  reward  in  his  view  begin  at  death. 
Some  of  the  arguments  for  the  doctrine  are  framed  to  account 
for  what  Christ  did  between  his  death  and  resurrection:  to  show 
that  He  was  not  in  an  unconscious  state.  Another  reason  was, 
that  they  might  hold  to  the  view  that  those  who  depart  without 
conscious  faith  are  saved,  and  yet  connect  their  salvation  with 
Christ.  The  clause  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  He  descended  into 
hell — or  the  world  of  departed  spirits — came  into  the  creed  in 
the  fourth  century.  It  has  received  a  variety  of  interpretations. 
Some,  as  the  Westminster  Confession,  understand  by  it,  simply, 
death:  others  connect  with  it  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  interme- 
diate state.  In  the  development  of  the  Roman  Catholic  system, 
the  doctrine  assumed  the  further  form  of  the  complete  purgato- 
rial system.  Luther  in  several  passages  seems  to  imply  a  literal 
conquest  over  the  realm  of  the  dead  by  Christ  in  his  entering 
Hades.  The  view  of  Calvin  is  peculiar.  He  says,  Inst.  II.  xvi.  10, 
that  the  descent  into  hell  means  that  Christ  suffered  the  torments 
of  hell  really  and  truly, — that  his  object  was  not  to  deliver  others 
but  himself, — to  suffer  the  full  extent  of  the  divine  wrath. 

§  2.  PROPOSITION.  There  is  no  sufficient  Scriptural  Warrant  for 
such  an  Intermediate  State  as  described,  i.  e.,  a  state  in  which  des- 
tiny is  not  yet  decided,  and  is  to  be  decided. 

The  only  Scriptural  passages  are : 

Eph.  iv.  9,  10;  but  the  object  here  is  simply  to  show  that 

1  They  cited  Ps.  Ixviii.  18.  Origen  is  the  first  Christian  writer  who  quotes  1  Pet. 
iii.  18-21  as  setting  forth  Christ's  work  in  the  under-world.  The  appearing  of  tha 
saint*  at  the  time  of  Christ's  crucifixion,  Matt,  xxvii.  52,  is  also  applied  to  thii 
view 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          605 

Christ  is  Lord  of  ail — of  the  realm  below  as  well  as  the  realm 
above, — that  He  conquered  death  in  death.  Nothing  more  can 
be  fairly  deduced  from  the  passage. 

Eph.  iv.  8  (Ps.  Ixviii.  18) ;  but  this  means  nothing  more  than 
taking  his  enemies  captive,  not,  delivering  others  from  penal 
suffering. 

Matt.  xii.  40.     This  merely  expresses  the  fact  of  death. 

Acts  ii.  27  (Ps.  xvi.  10).  This  simply  declares  that  death 
should  not  prevail  over  Christ,  but  that  He  should  prevail  over  it. 

1  Pet,  iii.  18-21.  "Being  put  to  death  in  the  flesh;11  there 
is  no  doubt  about  that.  "Quickened  in  the  spirit;"  this,  with 
the  foregoing  clause,  asserts  in  respect  to  Christ  a  fleshly  state 
and  the  beginning  of  a  spiritual  state :  "  in  the  spirit "  sets  forth 
the  complete  domination  of  the  spiritual  and  cessation  of  the 
fleshly  as  far  as  connected  with  this  life.  "In  which"  spirit, 
i.  e.,  "He  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison."  When  ? 
The  passage  does  not  imply  that  He  did  it  while  in  the  state  of 
death.  "When  they  were  sometime  disobedient."  Not  that 
He  preached  to  them  in  the  interval  of  his  death,  which  is  not 
asserted.  It  is  only  said  that  it  was  "in  the  days  of  Noah."  If 
the  preaching  referred  to  was  the  preaching  at  this  time  in 
Hades,  why  are  Noah's  times  mentioned? — The  object  of  the 
passage  is,  to  connect  the  two  facts  that  Christ,  the  Being  who 
is  now  put  to  death  in  the  flesh  and  quickened  in  the  spirit,  by 
that  same  spirit  has  been  always  preaching.  He  preached  even 
in  the  days  of  Noah.  "Those  who  were  disobedient: "  the  mass 
rejected  his  preaching,  but  he  preached  so  as  to  save  eight  souls. 
"  And  by  the  like  figure,  baptism,  we  are  saved  now."  The  ob- 
ject is,  to  connect  the  work  of  Christ  with  the  whole  mediatorial 
scheme.  The  other  view  compels  us  to  say  that  the  reason  why 
Christ  preached  in  Hades  to  these  persons  was  because  they  re- 
fused to  obey  in  Noah's  time;  which  is  a  very  singular  reason  for 
Christ's  going  to  preach  to  them.  Even  if  this  other  interpreta- 
tion were  allowed,  all  that  could  be  got  from  it  would  be  merely  a 
proclamation  of  truth  to  them,  without  any  mention  of  its  effect.1 

1  [This  interpretation  of  1  Pet.  iii  18-21  is  found  only  in  a  note-book.  There 
are  no  hints  in  the  manuscripts  to  aid  in  making  a  fuller  statement  of  the  author'! 

view.] 


CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 

§  3.   Of  Purgatory. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  built  up  a  doctrine  of  purga- 
tory on  a  few  passages  of  Scripture.  As  fully  developed  in 
the  later  dogmatic  statements,  the  doctrine  is  as  follows:  That 
before  Christ  no  one  was  in  heaven.  All  were  in  an  intermedi- 
ate state.  This  had  two  regions:  Paradise  or  Abraham's  bosom 
for  the  perfect,  Purgatory  for  the  imperfect,  including  the  dif- 
ferent divisions  of  the  limbus  patrum  and  the  limbus  infantum. 
The  doctrinal  position  connected  with  this  is,  that  though 
Christ  made  full  redemption  for  man  so  as  to  deliver  from  eternal 
woe,  yet  there  is  a  class  of  sins  from  which  persons  are  to  obtain 
deliverance  and  pardon  by  means  of  ecclesiastical  satisfactions; 
that  the  church  has  laid  up  a  treasury  of  grace  from  the  merits 
of  Christ  and  the  saints,  which  she  may  dispense ;  and  that  she 
dispenses  these  in  order  to  relieve  men  from  the  temporal  pen- 
alties of  sin,  the  eternal  penalties,  as  they  grant,  being  taken 
away  by  Christ.  During  his  life  a  man  may  accumulate  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  years  of  suffering,  by  his  sins.  The  church  may 
deliver  him,  by  passing  over  to  his  credit  merits  from  the  store 
which  she  has  in  charge. 

The  only  Scriptural  basis  which  is  suggested  for  this  doctrine 
is  Matt.  iii.  11;  1  Cor.  iii.  15;  Jude  23.  None  of  these  has  any 
bearing  upon  the  doctrine.  Newman  presents  this  doctrine  as 
one  of  the  clearest  instances  of  "development"  from  a  slight 
Scriptural  germ,  but  it  is  really  an  instance  of  the  development 
from  a  germ  of  what  was  never  in  it,  as  if  from  a  mustard  seed 
one  could  develop  an  apple. 

§  4.   The  Sleep  of  Soids. 

In  the  early  church  there  were  some  who  held  the  doctrine 
of  the  sleep  of  souls.  Origen  is  said  to  have  refuted  certain  ad- 
vocates of  this  opinion  at  a  council  in  Africa.  Tertullian  argued 
against  them.  One  of  the  earlier  works  of  Calvin,  1534,  was 
against  this  doctrine.  Many  of  the  earlier  Anabaptists  and 
Socinians  maintained  the  view.  Luther  shows  a  proclivity  to  it 
in  some  of  his  writings,  but  is  undecided  upon  the  whole.  In 
later  English  literature,  a  somewhat  similar  doctrine  has  beer? 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          607 

taught  by  Isaac  Taylor  and  by  Archbishop  Whately, — that  be* 
tween  death  and  the  resurrection  there  is  a  semi-conscious  or 
serai-unconscious  state  of  the  soul,  and  that  only  at  the  resurrec 
tion  are  the  full  powers  of  the  soul  called  out.  Time,  they  say, 
is  all  annulled  between  death  and  the  resurrection.  The  phil- 
osophical attempt  to  defend  this  has  been  on  the  ground  that  the 
soul  cannot  act  without  the  body,  and  that  therefore  it  must  wait 
for  the  body. 

Against  the  doctrine  lie  such  considerations  as  the  following: 
(1)  The  nature  of  the  soul,  implying  constant  activity.  Sleep 
is  in  connection  with  the  exigencies  of  the  bodily  constitution: 
when  the  soul  is  delivered  from  these,  we  should  expect  a  more 
intense  activity.  (2)  The  doctrine  has  a  cheerless  aspect.  Ifc 
makes  the  future  to  be  a  blank  and  would  cause  a  total  loss  in 
the  instances  where  persons  are  taken  from  the  earth  in  the 
height  of  their  career, — from  a  condition  where  they  are  per- 
forming good  service,  and  carried  to  a  state  where  there  is  no 
activity.  (3)  Christian  experience  in  the  article  of  death  is 
opposed  to  it:  the  bright  visions  of  the  future,  apparent  converse 
with  the  forms  of  the  blessed,  ardent  expectations  of  immediate 
bliss.  All  Christian  experience,  as  far  as  it  reaches,  is  of  an 
immediate  entrance  into  a  state  of  higher  activity  than  mere 
slumber.  (4)  The  Scriptures  are  against  it.  The  representa- 
tions of  the  life  of  the  Christian  here, — John  v.  24,  everlasting 
life  is  already  begun ;  Phil.  iii.  20,  we  are  partakers  already  of 
the  heavenly  citizenship.  The  passages  which  speak  of  an  im- 
mediate blessing, — Acts  vii.  59,  i.  e.,  Receive  it  now;  Phil, 
i,  23,  If  he  was  to  depart  and  be  in  unconsciousness,  he  would 
not  be  willing  to  give  up  his  glorious  labors  for  Christ;  2  Cor. 
v.  8,  "Absent  from  the  body"  and  "present  with  the  Lord"  are 
equivalent,  and  "  present  with  the  Lord  "  is  not  unconsciousness, 
To  these  may  be  added  Heb.  xii.  23,  Luke  xxiii.  43. 


l>08  CHRISTIAN     THEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE     SECOND    ADVENT. 

1, — The  Millenarian  Hypothesis. 

Some  advocates  of  this  include  more  particulars,  some  less; 
the  Millenarians  best  known  as  such,  maintain  substantially  the 
following:1  (1)  Christ's  personal  advent  precedes  the  millennium, 
(2)  the  resurrection  of  saints  occurs  at  this  advent,  (3)  the  saints 
are  to  reign  with  Him,  while  mankind  is  still  in  the  body,  subject 
to  disease  and  death,  (4)  this  dispensation  is  to  continue  one 
thousand  years,  in  which  Jews  and  Gentiles  are  to  be  converted. 
— The  doctrine  involves  these  positions:  (a.)  The  millennium  is 
not  an  expansion  of  the  present,  but  a  new  dispensation;  (6.)  It 
is  not  to  be  introduced  by  present  agencies;  all  will  wax  worse 
and  worse:  the  gospel  will  not  convert  the  world;  (c.)  The  Son 
of  God  will  have  a  visible  reign  and  majesty  in  the  world. 
Christ  and  his  saints  will  dwell  in  a  new  Jerusalem,  of  which 
Rev.  xxi.  gives  the  description,  over  and  on  the  earthly  Jerusa- 
lem ;  the  temple  will  be  rebuilt,  the  Jews  restored,  the  center  of 
worship  will  be  at  Jerusalem;  (d.)  There  are  two  resurrections, 
one,  of  the  holy  dead,  at  the  beginning, — another,  of  the  wicked 
dead,  at  the  close  of  the  millennium;  (e.)  There  will  be  no  gen- 
eral Judgment;  the  Judgment  is  in  two  parts,  one  before,  and 
one  after,  the  millennium;  (/.)  Then  the  world  is  to  be  refitted 
and  forever  inhabited. 

The  Scriptural  basis  is  Rev.  xx.  4 — A  period  between  the 
Ascension  of  Christ  and  the  Second  Advent  is  intercalated  and 
said  to  be  overlooked  in  Old  Testament  prophecy. 

II. — Objections  to  this  hypothesis. 

1.  The  end  of  the  world  is  not  viewed  as  near  in  the  Ne\* 
Testament. 

2.  Christ  remains  in  heaven  till  the  end  of  all.     Acts  iii.  21 ; 
Heb.  x.  12,  13;Lukexix.  13. 

1  Lord,  Lit.  and  Theo!.  Journal,  July,  1850;  see  also  Prine.  Rev«,  Jan.  1853. 


THE     KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  609 

3.  The  Bible  brings  into  view  only  one  final  Judgment.  Matt, 
xiii  39;  xxiv.  36;  xxv.  31-46;  2  Thess.  i.  6-10  (—the  judgment 
of  the  righteous  and  of  the  wicked  simultaneous). 

4  The  connection  of  the  coming  of  Christ,  the  resurrection, 
and  the  judgment,  is  too  explicit  to  admit  their  separation  by  the 
millennium,  (a.)  The  connection  of  the  second  coming  with 
the  end  of  the  world:  Matt.  xxiv.  3;  2  Pet.  iii.  3-7.  (6.)  The 
connection  of  the  second  coming  with  the  resurrection :  1  Thess. 
iv.  16,  17;  John  v.  28;  Phil.  iii.  20,  21;  1  Cor.  xv.  22.  (c.)  The 
connection  of  the  second  advent  with  the  judgment:  Matt, 
xvi.  27;  xxv.  31;  2  Tim.  iv.  1;  iv.  8;  2  Thess.  i.  6-10;  1  Cor. 
iv.  5  ;  Kev.  i.  7 ;  xxii.  12 ;  Jnde  6.  (d.)  The  connection  of  the  end 
of  the  world  with  the  resurrection.  John  vi.  39  ;  xi.  24.  (e.)  The 
connection  of  the  end  of  the  world  and  the  judgment.  Matt. 
xiii.  36-43;  xiii.  49;  John  xii.  48.  (/.)  The  connection  of  the 
resurrection  and  the  judgment.  Dan.  xii.  2;  John  v.  28,  29; 
Rev.  xx.  13. 

5.  The   resurrection  is  to  be  of  a   spiritual   body,   1  Cor. 
xv.  44;  but  the  pre-millennial  resurrection  is  to  a  reign  in  the 
world  as  now  constituted. 

6.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  has  already  come.     Acts  ii.  30,  31 ; 
iii.  15;  iv.  26;  v.  30,  31;  Heb.  x.  12;  Rev.  iii.  7;  Matt.  xiii.  31. 
("Comings"1  are  (a.)  General  exertions  of  God's  power:   Isa. 
xix.  1;  Dan.  vii.  13;  (6.)  End  of  age  or  aeon:*  Matt.  xxv.  28; 
2  Thess.  ii.  8;  (c.)  Death:  Phil.  i.  6;  1  Thess.  v.  23;  (d.)  The 
final  coming  to  judge  the  world  and  end  the  present  state.) 

'[This  remark  on  "  Comings  "  is  found  only  in  the  author's  papers;  it  was  not 
given  in  the  lectures  in  class.  There  is  some  doubt  whether  it  contains  his  view 
or  a  view  which  he  reserved  for  consideration.] 

2  Three  seons  reckoned  by  the  Jews:  before  the  law— under— and  the  time  of 
Messiah.] 


610  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  IY. 

RESURRECTION   OF   THE    BODY. 

The  words  translated  resurrection — to  awake  from  the  dead, 
to  raise  up — are  sometimes  used  to  denote  coming  to  life  after 
death,  but  they  are  used  distinctly  with  reference  to  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body.  The  doctrine  was  a  common  one  among 
the  Jews  at  the  time  of  Christ.  The  Pharisees  believed,  and  the 
Sadducees  denied  it.  The  doctrine  is  of  prime  importance  in 
connection  with  the  system  of  redemption  in  its  wide  applica- 
tion. Redemption  is  completed  with  the  resurrection.  Redemp- 
tion is  of  the  whole  man,  body  as  well  as  soul,  and  is  not  merely 
pardon  or  deliverance  from  spiritual  suffering. 

I. — In  the  Old  Testament,  the  doctrine  is  anticipated  rather 
than  clearly  defined.  There  is  an  intimation  of  it  in  Isa.  xxvi, 
19,  where  the  restoration  of  the  Jewish  people  is  compared 
to  a  resurrection  from  the  dead.  Ezek.  xxxvii.  1-14,  implies  a 
conviction  of  a  resurrection.  Dan.  xii.  2  asserts  the  doctrine. 
From  Job  xix.  25,  the  Vulgate,  Luther,  and  the  English  version 
teach  the  doctrine.  The  difficulty  about  it  is  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  its  interpretation.  The  Jewish  teachers  and  Christ 
did  not  refer  to  this  passage.1  Perhaps  the  rendering  in  our 
version  makes  the  reference  more  distinct  than  the  Hebrew  will 
warrant,  but  in  our  judgment  the  passage  at  least  looks  forward 
to  a  resurrection.  Otherwise  it  would  refer  only  to  Job's  recov- 
ery from  sickness,  which  makes  it  rather  tame  in  its  connection. 

II. — The  New  Testament.  There  is  here  a  general  and  a 
specific  recognition  of  the  doctrine. 

1.  The  general  recognition.     Matt.  xxii.  23;  Luke  xx.  27; 
Acts  xxiii.  6,  speak  of  the  opposing  beliefs  of  the  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees;  John  xi.  24;  v.  21,  25;  1  Cor.  xv.  22;  Acts  xxiv.  15. 

2.  The  specific  statements.     These  lead  to  the  definition  of 
the  modus,  as  far  as  that  is  possible.     2  Cor.  v.  1-4;  1  Cor.  xv., — 

*  Some  of  the  later  Jewish  interpreters  explain  it  of  the  resurrection.     See 
Notes  and  Queries,  1854,  p.  428. 


THE    KINGDOM    OF     REDEMPTION.  611 

here  the  resurrection  of  the  body  is  compared  with  Christ's 
resurrection;  this  is  the  most  important  point  in  the  whole  doc- 
trine ;  the  doctrine  is  to  be  constructed  in  view  of  that  compar- 
ison; 1  Thess.  iv.  14;  Acts  iv.  2;  Acts  xxvi.  23;  1  Cor.  xv.  20; 
vi.  14 

III. — As  to  the  modus  of  the  resurrection. 

The  Scriptures  treat  this  in  the  way  of  comparison  and  anal- 
ogy, which  is  perhaps  the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  treated. 
There  are  only  two  passages — and  a  third  one  illustrative — from 
which  anything  in  regard  to  the  mode  can  be  derived.  Phil.  iii. 
20,  21, — here  the  comparison  is  with  the  resurrection  of  Christ. 
If  He  arose  with  the  same  body,  we  shall  arise  with  the  same 
body,  but  changed  by  the  working  of  a  mighty  power;  John  xii. 
24, — this  suggests  the  analogy  which  is  further  carried  out  in 
1  Cor.  xv.  35-49, — here  the  question,  How?  is  directly  put  and 
met.  The  response  is,  Death  is  necessary  in  order  to  this  resur- 
rection, and  as  the  seed  though  the  same  is  raised  in  a  new  form, 
so  is  it  with  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  From  this  passage  all 
that  can  be  stated  is  this :  That  it  is  the  same  body  which  is  put 
in  the  grave  which  shall  be  raised,  but  it  shall  be  raised  in  a  dif- 
ferent form, — not  necessarily  with  identity  of  particles  any  more 
than  there  is  identity  of  particles  in  the  plant  which  grows  from 
the  seed.  The  difference  is  described  by  the  difference  between 
corruptible  and  incorruptible,  between  that  which  is  a  natural 
body  and  that  which  is  a  spiritual. — The  objection  which  may- 
be raised  is  on  the  question  of  identity.  What  is  the  identity  ? 
What  is  identity  in  any  living  and  organized  being?  It  implies 
a  comparison  of  the  being  in  one  state  with  the  being  in  another 
state.  The  identity  consists  in  the  following  particulars :  (1)  The 
same  central,  identical  principle  of  life  remains.  (2)  There  is, 
connected  with  this,  the  same  formative  principle.  In  connec- 
tion with  the  principle  of  life,  there  must  always  be  supposed  the 
nisus  formativus,  that  which  makes  the  particular  individuality 
of  any  particular  plant  or  animal.  These  two  gather  abou* 
themselves  whatever  may  tend  to  develop  or  nourish  the  body. 
The  identity  of  a  plant  or  human  body  is  thus  entirely  different 
from  that  of  a  stone,  which  is  the  identity  of  the  same  particles. 


012  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Therefore  the  principle  of  life  and  the  formative  principle  may 
remain  the  same,  and  yet  gather  around  them  other  particles 
which  may  serve  to  form  the  new  spiritual  body.  This  view 
avoids  the  grossness  of  the  merely  sensuous  view  of  the  res- 
urrection, and  also  avoids  evaporating  the  doctrine  into  the 
simple  statement  that  the  same  person  continues  to  live  after 
death. 

IV. — Remarks. 

1.  The  whole  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  is  resolved  into  the 
doctrine  of  immortality  by  the  Swedenborgians.1    This  is  refuted 
by  two  points:  (a.)  The  Scriptural  assertions  that  the  resurrec- 
tion is  future,  is  to  be  at  the  Last  Day,  in  connection  with  the 
Judgment.     Immortality  is  immediate,  but  the  resurrection  is 
future.     (6.)  All  the  illustrations  given  in  Scripture  imply  that 
it  is  the  same  body  that  is  raised,  and  that  Christ,  to  whose 
resurrection  ours  is  compared,  was  raised  with  the  same  body. 

2.  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  meets  a  deep-seated  long- 
ing in  human  nature, — the  identity  as  to  form  as  well  as  in  re- 
spect to  soul. 

3.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  this  doctrine  that  we  may  look  for  a 
renewal  of  our  knowledge  of  the  persons  we  have  known,  in  the 
personal  aspects. 

4.  The  doctrine  gives  us  a  more  living  view  of  our  eternal 
state  than  we  should  otherwise  have. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    LAST    JUDGMENT. 

The  Scriptures  teach  that  there  is  a  resurrection  to  judgment. 
Socinians  and  Swedenborgians  view  the  last  judgment  as  figu- 
rative, as  equivalent  merely  to  the  final  awards  to  each,  with  no 
scene,  no  congregation.  Millenarians  generally  teach  a  judg- 
ment of  nations,  before  the  particular  judgment  of  individuals 
1  See  also  the  later  writings  of  Bush. 


THE    KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  613 

According  to  the  Scriptures,  the  judgment  follows  the  resurrec- 
tion and  is  contemporaneous  with  the  end  of  the  world. 

Scriptural  passages  on  which  the  doctrine  rests:  Rev.  xx.  12; 
Acts  xvii.  31;  2  Thess.  i.  7-10;  Matt.  xi.  24;  xxv.  31-46.  In 
2  Pet.  iii.  7-13  the  judgment  is  connected  with  the  end  of  the 
world. 

The  circumstances  of  the  Judgment:  (1)  Christ  is  to  be  the 
Judge:  John  v.  22-25;  Acts  xvii.  31;  Matt.  xvi.  27.  (2)  The 
time  is  not  known:  2  Pet.  iii.  10;  1  Thess.  v.  2;  Matt.  xxv.  13. 
(3)  The  sentence  is  to  be  passed  on  all:  Matt.  xxv.  32;  Rom.  ii. 
6;  2  Cor.  v.  10. — And  even  the  angels  are  reserved  for  their 
doom.  .  (4)  The  judgment  is  final :  Rev.  xxii.  11. 

This  Judgment  is  not  the  first  passing  of  judgment,  but  the 
final  manifestation  of  it.  It  is  the  end  of  a  mediatorial  kingdom, 
the  consummation  of  an  economy.  The  position  that  at  The 
Judgment  the  first  passing  of  judgment  will  occur,  uproots  the 
Scriptural  doctrine  of  sin  and  of  the  penalty  of  death  which  has 
already  begun  to  be  inflicted  upon  men. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    AWARDS    OP    THE    LAST    DAY. 

Eternal  blessedness  is  to  be  assigned  by  Christ  to  the  right- 
eous, and  endless  punishment  to  the  wicked. 

The  first  marked  controversy  on  the  doctrine  of  endless  pun- 
ishment was  between  Doctor  Chauncey  and  the  younger  Edwards. 
The  reply  of  Edwards  is  one  of  the  ablest  metaphysical  discussions 
we  have  on  the  subject.  Joseph  Huntingdon,  settled  for  a  time 
in  Rhode  Island,  left  a  work  which  was  published  after  his  death, 
entitled  Calvinism  Improved.  The  improvement  consisted  in 
denying  the  endlessness  of  future  punishment.  Almost  all  the 
earlier  Universalists  were  of  Calvinistic  stock.  Such  were  Mur- 
ray and  Winchester,  under  whom  began  the  Universalist  move- 
ment in  this  country.  In  later  times  Universalists  have  tended 


614  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

to  become  Unitarians,  and  to  say  that  the  Scriptures  do  not 
reveal  anything  at  all  about  the  future  state,  that  all  the  expres- 
sions about  it  refer  to  the  ason  or  age  which  is  now  existing. 
This,  by  the  way,  is  the  only  defensible  position  on  the  Univer- 
salist  side.1  Maurice — to  Jelf — argues  that  eternal  implies  a 
moral  condition,  and  not  a  future  state.  Theodore  Parker  ac- 
knowledges that  Christ  taught  the  doctrine  of  endless  punish- 
ment, and  makes  this  one  of  the  arguments  in  proof  of  the 
position  that  Christ  was  not  perfect,  but  still  had  the  Jewish 
prejudices  lingering  about  him. 

The  question  here  is  primarily  one  of  fact  and  not  one  of 
theory.  It  is  a  fact  about  which  our  only  means  of  knowing  is 
the  declaration  of  One  who  knows  the  future  and  what  will  be 
man's  condition  hereafter.  It  is  a  solemn,  alarming,  fearful 
truth:  but  to  hold  it  is  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  whole 
system  of  faith,  and  also  to  the  taking  Scripture  as  the  rule 
of  faith.  The  denial  of  it  leads  to  the  undermining  of  the 
whole  doctrine  of  sin  and  redemption.  Universalism,  in  its 
theoretical  grounds,  all  runs  back  into  the  ethical  position  that 
happiness  is  the  great  good  and  suffering  the  great  evil  in  the 
universe.  This  is  its  proper  philosophical  basis.  As  soon  as 
holiness  is  made  to  be  the  great  good  and  sin  the  great  evil,  the 
basis  of  Universalism  is  undermined;  because  where  there  is 
sin  there  must  be  punishment,  for  the  maintenance  of  the  divine 
holiness.  In  fact,  the  chief  objections  to  the  doctrine  of  endless 
punishment  are  made  on  theoretical  and  not  on  exegetical 
grounds.  The  chief  effort  has  been  to  show  that  Scripture  may 
possibly  be  so  interpreted.2 

§  1.   The  Scriptural  Testimony  as  to  Endless  Punishment. 

We  do  not  now  argue  of  future,  but  of  everlasting  punishment. 

I. — The  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  is  a  natural  inference 

1  Prof.  Stuart's  Essays,  1830,  republished  in  1867,  give  the  best  philological 
reply  to  the  Universalist  positions.  Article  also  by  Prof.  Barrows,  Bib.  Sac.,  July, 
1858.  Andrew  Fuller's  tract  on  Endless  Punishment  is  a  good  discussion. 

*  Kg.,  John  Foster's  famous  letter:  it  contains  no  Scriptural  argument,  but 
is  a  general  statement  on  the  ground  of  the  divine  benevolence.  See  Woods,  in 
his  Lectures;  Oheever,  in  Bib.  Sac.,  viii.  471,  x.  544. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          615 

from  the  fact  that  in  the  Scriptures  there  is  not  a  hint  of  the  pos- 
sible future  salvation  of  those  who  die  impenitent. 

II. — It  is  involved  in  the  awards  of  the  Last  Day,  as  final: 
Matt.  xxv.  41-44. 

III. — It  is  an  inference  from  the  position  that  Christ's  medi- 
atorial  kingdom  is  described  as  coming  to  an  end,  when  of 
course  all  hope  and  possibility  of  recovery  must  cease.1 

IV. — There  are  also  special  declarations. 

1.  The  class  of  positive  declarations  as  to  the  duration  of  de- 
struction and  torment:  2  Thess.  i.  8,  9,  where  we  have  oheQpov, 
destruction,  at&viov,  eternal,  and  and  xpodwitov  rov  uvpiov,  from 
the  presence  of  the  Lord;  Rev.  xiv.  11. 

2.  Descriptions  of  suffering.     Mark  ix.  43 ;  Luke  xvi.  19-26 ; 

3.  The  case  of  the  devil  and  his  angels.     If  a  condition  of 
endless  punishment  by  suffering  is  established  in  their  case,  the 
theoretical  argument  against  its  possibility  is  overthrown.    Rev. 
xx.  10;  Matt.  xxv.  41. 

4.  The  description  in  Rev.  xxii.  11,  where  the  history  of  the 
world  is  carried  to  its  consummation,  and  the  last  scenes  are  in- 
troduced.    This  involves  the  position  that  in  the  consummation 
of  the  whole  order  of  things  there  is  a  final  separation  between 
the  just  and  the  unjust. 

5.  The  second  death  is  spoken  of — an  intensive  way  of  de- 
scribing the  penalty.2 

6.  To  these  positions  and  statements  must  be  added  what 
is  said  of  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  Mark  iii.  29 3  (Matt.  xii. 
31,  32 ;  Luke  xii.  10).    The  argument  from  what  is  said  of  the  sin 
against  the  Holy  Ghost  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  conclusive.4 
Forgiveness  is  excluded  in  the  world  to  come  from  those  who 
sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  (ovre  kv  T&  utTJ^ovn,  Matt.  xii.  32). 
The  force  of  this  statement  does  not  depend  upon  what  we  may 

1  Prof.  Stuart  regarded  this  as  one  of  the  very  strongest  Scriptural  arguments. 
2 [Rev.  Vers.  :  "  This  is  the  second  death,  even  the  lake  of  fire."    Rev.  xx.  14.] 
3[djLiapr?}/ii<xro/s  accepted  as  the  reading.    Rev.  Vers. — "hath  never  forgive- 
ness, but  is  guilty  of  an  eternal  sin."] 

4  Tholuck,  who  once  was  inclined  to  accept  the  doctrine  of  restitution,  came 
Dack  to  the  Scriptural  faith  in  wrestling  with  the  passages  in  regard  to  the  sin 
the  Holv  Ghost. 


61 G  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

say  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost  is.  (There  are  four  leading 
views.  (1)  It  is  a  single  sin,  an  impious  word  which  bias 
phemes  the  Holy  Ghost,  implying  that  the  sinner  has  come 
to  a  state  in  which  he  resists  God's  last  influences.  Doderlein, 
Cramer,  Reinhard,  Michselis,  Bretschneider,  Harless,  etc.  (2) 
Any  actual  sin  against  a  conscience  which  is  illumined  by  God's 
Spirit.  Weiss. — This  is  making  it  too  general.  (3)  Some  one, 
in  the  general  class  of  "  mortal  sins."  Lucke,  Bohmer.  (4)  The 
most  common  and  perhaps  the  best  view:  it  is  an  internal  state 
of  the  highest  sinfnlness  which  cannot  be  changed  and  which 
shows  itself  in  speech  or  action,  resisting  or  deliberately  setting 
the  soul  against  the  influences  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Stier,  Tholuck, 
Olshausen,  Hahn,  J.  Muller,1  Hofmann.2) 

Also  there  must  be  added  what  is  said  in  1  John  v.  16, 
£<5nv  dfiapria.  rtpds  Qararor.  There  is  sin  for  which  prayer  can- 
not avail. 

7.  It  is  to  be  noted,  that  these  strong  passages  as  to  eternal 
perdition  are  in  the  New  Testament  and  not  in  the  Old.8 

V. — The  doctrine  of  final  condemnation  and  eternal  punish- 
ment is  implied  in  other  Scriptural  doctrines.  The  theoretical 
possibilities  here : 

1.  The  doctrine  of  the  nature  and  desert  of  sin  includes  the 
position  that  the  punishment  is  to  be  everlasting.     Sin  as  the 
worst  thing  is  to  be  accompanied  by  that  which  will  show  it  to 
be  the  worst.     If  there  is  any  case  of  continued  sin,  it  is  a  just 
inference  that  there  will  be  continued  punishment.     Hence,  in 
order  to  disprove  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment,  it  must  be 
shown  that  sin  will  be  extirpated  absolutely.     Unless  this  is 
done,  it  cannot  be  shown  that  punishment  will  cease.     The  final 
Judgment  shows  the  continuance  of  sin. 

2.  The  doctrine  of  repentance  as  necessary  to  salvation  in- 
volves theoretically  the  possibility  of  final  and  everlasting  con- 
demnation.    If  there  is  no  repentance,  there  cannot  be  salva- 

1  Siinde,  ii.  598,  ed.  5. 

2  Schriftb.,  ii,  2,  315.— Augustine:  "  Duritia  cordis  usque  ad  finem  hujus  vitse, 
vel  impoenitentia  finalis,  quse  ipsa  cum  irremissibilitate  necessarie  conjuncta  est." 
So,  Luther. 

3  Urged  by  Dr.  John  Owen.— See  Maurice,  Essays,  p.  336. 


THE    KINGDOM     OF    REDEMPTION.  617 

tion.  If  any  remain  impenitent,  they  cannot  be  finally  saved, 
and  must  be  punished  forever.  Those  who  preach  the  neces- 
sity of  repentance  also  preach  that  if  men  do  not  repent,  their 
final  and  everlasting  condemnation  will  be  just. 

3.  The  same  is  the  case  with  respect  to  the  kindred  point — 
salvation  through  Christ  alone.  If  any  do  not  believe,  they  must 
be  lost.  The  necessity  of  believing  in  Christ  in  order  to  salva- 
tion implies  the  position  that  if  any  continue  unbelieving  their 
everlasting  punishment  is  just  and  right.  In  order  to  escape 
from  the  theoretical  possibility,  we  must  escape  from  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  repentance  and  of  faith  in  Christ.  Admitting 
these  to  be  absolutely  essential,  the  inference  is  clear  that  in 
case  there  is  not  repentance  and  faith,  there  must  be  punishment 
as  long  as  the  absence  of  them  continues. — Consequently,  the 
Universalists  come  off  these  Scriptural  grounds. 

There  is,  in  fact,  no  sense  in  salvation,  as  the  bestowal  of 
eternal  life,  unless  it  be  a  fact  that  without  the  salvation  there 
would  be  eternal  death.  If  the  eternity  of  future  punishment 
is  not  rational,  eternal  life  as  a  gift  of  grace  is  irrational.  If  it 
be  not  just  to  condemn  men  to  everlasting  death  for  sin,  it  is 
not  an  act  of  grace  to  confer  upon  them  endless  blessedness. 
No  one  can  believe  in  redemption  unto  endless  beatitude,  unless 
he  believes  in  a  state  of  condemnation  which  must  be  eternal, 
were  it  not  for  that  redemption. 

§  2.   Objections  to  the  Doctrine  of  Endless  Punishment. 

The  objections,  being  mostly  on  theoretical  grounds,  are  not 
adequate  to  overthrow  the  testimony  as  to  fact. 

Obj.  I. — That  the  word  atoonos  does  not  signify  time,  but  in- 
tensity. It  designates  a  state  rather  than  continued  being.1 — 
The  position  cannot  be  sustained  from  the  usage.2  A  state  is 
included,  but  duration  is  implied.  If  we  do  not  infer  from  the 
word  the  endless  punishment  of  the  wicked,  we  cannot  infer  the 
endless  blessedness  of  the  righteous. 

1  Maurice's  position. 

2  Stuart,  p.  46,  enumerates  the  cases  in  ^hich  at&vtoS  occurs.    The  propel 
translation  is  everlasting,  not  "asonian." 


618  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

Obj.  II. — To  the  eternity  of  punishment,  as  if  that  were  a 
particular  kind  of  punishment. — It  is  simply  the  continued  ex- 
istence of  what  is  already  begun.  If  penal  suffering  for  trans- 
gression now  is  justifiable,  it  is  justifiable  as  long  as  sin  exists. 
If  it  is  not  justifiable  hereafter,  it  is  not  justifiable  here. 

Obj.  III. — From  the  power  of  God:  his  power  is  adequate  to 
take  away  evil  and  suffering,  and  therefore  He  will  ultimately 
exclude  them  from  the  universe. — But  the  power  of  God  is  not 
mere  omnipotence,  but  power  in  connection  with  a  moral  gov- 
ernment. It  is  in  the  service  of  his  wisdom  and  holiness :  to 
promote  the  holiness  of  his  subjects  is  his  great  aim.  Besides 
the  argument  would  prove  too  much:  it  would  prove  that  He 
should  exclude  sin  and  suffering  now  as  well  as  in  the  future. 

Obj.  IV. — From  the  divine  benevolence. — As  we  have  already 
shown,  God's  Benevolence  has  ultimate  respect  to  holiness,  and 
not  to  the  production  of  happiness.  It  is  shown  in  providing  a 
way  of  salvation.  If  this  be  rejected,  no  impeachment  of  the  di- 
vine benevolence  can  remain. 

Obj.  V. — That  sin  is  a  negation,  an  imperfection,  which  will 
be  thrown  off  in  the  progressive  development  of  mankind.  This 
is  the  Pantheistic  view,  and  is  the  heart  of  all  objections  to  the 
doctrine,  i.  e.,  that  sin  is  not  the  violation  of  a  known  law  of 
holiness,  but  that  it  is  a  part  of  education.  We  have  already 
considered  this.  If  carried  out,  it  overthrows  the  whole  doctrine 
of  sin  and  redemption  and  the  entire  Christian  scheme.  All  be- 
comes a  mere  process  of  development. 

§  3.   Of  the  Restitution  of  all  Things. 

Some  who  deny  everlasting  punishment,  rest  their  denial  on 
the  assertion  that  the  Scriptures  teach  the  restitution  of  all 
things,  and  the  final  reconciliation  of  all  moral  beings  to  God. — 
The  previous  argument  refutes  this.  It  only  remains  to  consider 
some  of  the  passages  quoted  in  favor  of  this  particular  view. 
The  position  to  be  taken  here  is,  that  all  these  passages  can  be 
interpreted  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  that  there  are  some 
who  will  be  forever  punished,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pas- 
sages which  teach  final  condemnation  cannot  be  interpreted  in 


THE    KINGDOM     OF     REDEMPTION.  619 

harmony  with  the  position  that  there  is  to  be  such  a  restitution 
of  all  things.  Some  of  the  passages  taken  alone  and  without 
their  connections  might  teach  restitution ;  but  we  have  to  inter- 
pret the  Scripture  harmoniously. 

Rom.  v.  18.  This  is  to  be  interpreted  as  a  comparison  of  the 
two  systems — as  systems.  As  by  the  one  system  judgment 
comes  upon  all,  so  by  the  righteousness  of  One  (or  by  one  right- 
eous deed)  the  free  gift  comes  upon  all.  It  satisfies  the  connec- 
tion to  interpret  this  of  a  superabounding  provision  in  Christ 
for  all,  a  provision  generally  for  the  whole  human  race. 

Rom.  viii.  19-24.  Here  all  that  is  created  is  represented  as 
looking  forward  to  a  time  of  redemption.  The  economy  of  re- 
demption is  contrasted  with  the  economy  of  sin.  "  Creation  "  is 
most  naturally  interpreted,  not  of  Christians,  nor  of  moral  be- 
ings, but  of  the  who'e  creation,  in  consequence  of  sin,  appointed 
in  regard  to  a  redemption,  which  is  the  grand  issue.  It  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  some  will  not  come  under  these 
provisions. 

Col.  i.  19,  20. — This  also  is  general;  it  brings  into  view  the 
grand  effects  and  results;  it  does  not  deny  that  there  may  be  ex- 
ceptions. Christ's  triumph  is  also  said  to  consist  in  "  putting 
under  foot,"  destroying,  punishing. 

1  Tim.  ii.  4.  Here  we  must  understand,  not  the  "  will "  of 
efficient  purpose,  but — of  benevolent  desire,  as  shown  in  pro* 
vision,  plan,  and  arrangements. 

Heb.  ii.  9.     Universality  of  provision l  is  asserted. 

Phil.  ii.  9.  This  is  one  of  the  strongest  passages,  because  it 
is  distributive :  "  Every  knee,"  etc.  We  think  it  is  a  fair  inter- 
pretation that  the  passage  describes  the  issue  of  Christ's  kingdom 
generally,  and  has  respect  to  the  honor  to  be  paid  to  Him,  the 
glory  to  accrue  to  Him  rather  than  to  the  universality  of  hearty 
and  loving  allegiance.  The  burden  of  the  passage  is  that  He  shall 
be  glorified.  It  is  fairly  interpreted  of — those  who  are  under 
his  dominion.  Especially  is  this  true  when  we  take  with  it 
1  Cor.  xv.  24,  which,  describing  the  end  of  his  mediatorial  king- 

1  If  all  for  whom  Christ  died  are  to  be  saved,  then  this  passage  would  teach 
universal  salvation.  It  does  teach— a  general  atonement. 


620  CHRISTIAN    THEOLOGY. 

dom,  speaks  of  the  enemies  under  his  feet,  implying  that  there 
are  those  who  are  in  a  state  of  punishment. 

It  follows  that  the  interpretation  of  Acts  iii.  21,  diroxarcujra* 
<5eaos  navrcov,  as  teaching  universal  salvation  is  not  sustained  by 
the  Scriptures. 

§  4.  Position  and  Relations  of  the  Doctrine  of  Future  Punishment. 

1.  The  principles  in  the  case  are  not  made  or  altered  by  the 
fact  of  the  eternity  of  the  punishment.     If  proper  strict  punish- 
ment be  admitted — punishment  not  as  reformatory  or  disciplinary 
but  penal — the  principle  is  admitted.     And  then 

2.  The  question  is  one  of  fact,  of  Scriptural  interpretation: 
Whether  the  Bible  really  teaches  that  all  will  be  saved. 

3.  The  denial  of  the  doctrine  leads  to  other  denials,  and  ulti- 
mately, if  those  who  deny  are  logical,  to  doing  away  with  the  re- 
demptive system;  because  the  redemption  is  from  eternal  death; 
and  if  so,  eternal  death  was  right  and  righteous,  as  redemption 
is  of  grace.     Hence 

4.  Denial  of  the  doctrine  leads  to  the  denial  of  strict  moral 
government  as  well.     Sin  is  taken  as  negative,  punishment  as 
corrective.     Naturalism   is   the    consequence.     These   practical 
effects  are  seen  as  a  matter  of  fact. 

5.  As  to  the  numbers  of  the  saved  and  lost  we  have  no 
revelation. 

6.  The  orthodox  evangelical  system  exhibits  much  more  of 
God's  benevolence  and  mercy  than  does  this  universalism.     It 
sets  forth  a  system  of  grace,  to  all  that  hear  the  gospel  offer.     If 
any  such  are  lost,  it  is  because  they  refused  the  proffered  grace. 

7.  The  doctrine  is  to  be  preached  always  with  solemnity  and 
awe;  and  so  as  to  give  the  strongest  motives  and  power  to  the 
offer  of  salvation,  which  it  is  the  office  of  the  preacher  to  make 
to  all. 

§  5.   The  Award  of  Eternal  Blessedness  to  the  Righteous. 

The  King  shall  say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand,  Come  ye 
blessed  of  my  Father.  The  gates  of  the  Paradise  of  God  are 
opened  wide  to  the  redeemed  and  reembodied  soul.  Christ 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  REDEMPTION.          621 

sees  then  of  the  travail  of  his  soul,  and  is  satisfied.  Those  who 
suffered  with  Him  shall  also  reign  with  Him.  They  are  heira 
of  God  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ. 

This  blessedness  is  in  the  vision  of  God;  1  Cor.  xiii.  12; 
2  Cor.  v.  7 ;  Matt.  v.  8 ;  1  John  iii.  2.  God  will  then  be  revealed 
to  the  soul,  as  now  the  world  is  to  the  senses. 

It  is  in  the  fellowship  with  Christ.     Phil.  i.  23. 

It  is  in  the  complete  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  creation  will  be  transformed  into  its  final  condition  of 
glory:  Rom.  viii.  19-32;  2  Pet.  iii.  13;  Rev  xxi.  1. 

The  glory  of  human  nature  will  be  fully  attained :  the  image 
of  God  will  be  perfectly  realized,  as  it  cannot  be  here  on  earth: 
1  Cor.  xiii.  12;  1  John  iii.  2. 

All  created  spirits  will  be  united  in  one  vast  spiritual  empire-  - 
a  harmonized  universe.  As  Jew  and  Gentile  were  brought  into 
the  unity  of  the  Christian  church,  so  human  and  angelic  beings, 
all  ages  and  all  histories,  are  brought  to  a  headship  and  eternal 
unity  in  Christ. 

Of  this  the  new  song  is  the  testimony  and  expression. 
Rev.  v.  13:  And  every  created  thing  which  is  in  the  heaven, 
and  on  the  earth,  and  under  the  earth  and  on  the  sea,  and  all 
things  that  are  in  them,  heard  I  saying,  unto  Him  that  sitteth 
on  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb,  be  the  blessing,  and  the 
honor,  and  the  glory,  and  the  dominion,  for  ever  and  ever. 

In  the  eternal  melody  of  that  song,  resounding  for  evermore, 
making  heaven  vocal  with  praise  deeper  and  tenderer  than  any 
other, — in  and  with  that  melody,  Christian  Theology  forever 
closes. 


D  E  X 


Abbott,  Ezra,  393. 

Abelard,   21,  467. 

Ability,  natural,  326-336;  moral,  328. 

Adam,  his  headship,  344-34=7. 

Advent,  Second,  608,  609. 

Alexander,  Dr.,  214. 

Ambrose,  167. 

Angels,  98,  99;  evil,  99-101. 

Annihilation,  600. 

Anselm,  307,  363,  467. 

Antecedents  of  Redemption,  3  et  seq. 

Anthropology,  Christian,  160  et  seq. 

Anthropomorphism,  9. 

Anthropopathism,  9. 

Apollinaris,  396. 

Apologetics  (vol.)  3,  4,  8. 

Aquinas,  82,  83,  104,  143,  174,  180,  307, 
363. 

Arian  objections  to  Divinity  of  Christ, 
63-65. 

Arianism,  73,  74,  77,  397. 

Arians,  5,  392. 

Aristotle,  162,  196,  205,  226,  240,  277, 
298,  307,  363,  494. 

Arminian  controversy  in  Holland,  548; 
position  on  justification,  539,  549. 

Arraiuianism,  239,  242,  243. 

Arminians,  198;  question  between  them 
and  Calvinists,  119. 

Arnold,  Dr.,  360. 

Assurance  of  salvation,  542,  543,  Sir 
Wm.  Hamilton,  Luther,  Melanc- 
thon,  Calvin,  Arminius,  on,  542. 

Athanasius,  74,  390. 

Atonement,  the,  437^77  et  seq. ;  usage 
of  the  word,  and  terms  clustering 
round  it,  437,  438;  its  necessity, 
438-442;  represented  as  sacrificial; 
442-461;  theories  of,  as  a  moral 
influence,  464-466;  a  satisfaction 
to  distributive  justice,  466-469;  to 
general  justice,  469,  470;  to  public 
or  essential  justice,  470;  remarks 
on  these  theories,  471-476;  views 
of  Kant,  Kobertson,  Bushnell,  Cole- 
ridge, Campbell,  and  Kothe,  465; 
of  Anselm,  Abelard,  467;  of  A.  A. 
Hodge,  468;  extent  of,  478-481. 

Attributes,  divine,  12-47. 


Augustine,  6,  167,  255,  256, 259,  298, 322 
350,  362,  363,  390,  536,  604,  616.    ' 
Austin,  Samuel,  127. 
Awards  of  the  last  day,  613-621. 

B. 

Baptism,  595  ;  of  infants,  594,  595. 

Bartlett,  Pres. ,  600. 

Beecher,  Edward,  7,  303,  310,  313. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  322. 

Beings,    created,    different    orders   of, 

98-101. 

Bellamy,  Dr.,  215,  257,  305,  516,  554. 
Benevolence,  divine,  38-43;  definition 

of,  38-40;  sources  of  proof  of,  40; 

objections  to  and    theories,   from 

existence  of  evil,  40-43. 
Bengel,  388. 
Bentham,  205. 
Berkeley,  5,  103. 
Bernard,  390. 
Birks,  158. 

Bledsoe,  124,  240,  509. 
Blessedness,  Eternal,  of  the  Bighteous, 

620,  621. 
Boethius,  18,  82. 
Bonaventura,  143. 
Brandis,  298. 
Breckinridge,  Dr.,  16. 
Bretschneider,  127,  144,  252. 
Brodie,  Sir  Benj.,  598. 
Brown,  179. 
Brown,  Bishop,  5. 
Brown's  Theol.  Tracts,  126,  191. 
Brown  son,  0.  A.,  322. 
Bull,  Bishop,  252,  522. 
Burke,  Edm.,  178. 
Burton,  Dr.,  127,  554. 
Bush,  Dr.,  612. 

BushneU,  Horace,  48,  194,  247,  465. 
Butler,  Bish.,  179,  180,  512. 

C. 

Cabbalists,  431. 

CaU,  the  gospel,  515-521;  the  external, 

515.  516;  the  internal,  516. 
Calvin,  11,  23,  29,  102,  124,  143,  307, 

350,  363,  367,  431,  543,  548,  606. 
Calvinistic    bodies,    397;    theologians, 

143;  theology,  31;  its  two  princi 


624 


INDEX. 


pies,  377,  378;  view  of  our  union 
with  Christ,  537. 

Calvinists,  their  questions  with  Armin- 
ians,  119,  239,  213;  with  HopMn- 
sians,  568. 

Campbell,  Dr.  George,  98,  603. 

Campbell,  McLeod,  on  Atonement,  465. 

Candlish,  K.  S.,  89,  361 

Carlyle,  277. 

Cartesian  philosophy,  104,  164. 

Catechisms,  Westminster,  see  Westmin- 
ster. 

Cave,  Alfred,  438,  442. 

Chalmers,  Dr.,  360,  496,  512,  575. 

Channing,  Dr.,  559. 

Chase,  Prof.,  113. 

Chauncey,  Dr.,  613. 

Chemnitz,  396. 

Christ,  his  divinity,  53  et  seq. ;  his  di- 
vine attributes,  53-56;  designated 
as  divine,  56-60;  the  object  of  re- 
ligious worship,  60-62;  Arian  ob- 
jections, 63-65;  his  person  and 
work,  341  et  seq. ;  the  perfect  man, 
354-358,  teachings  of  Scripture 
concerning,  386-396;  his  divinity, 
387-389;  miraculous  conception, 
389-392;  complete  humanity,  392, 
393;  both  divine  and  human,  393, 
394,  421 ;  one  person  and  his  person- 
ality from  the  divine  nature,  394, 395, 
421,  422;  early  heretical  views  con- 
cerning, 396;  later  objections  and 
differences  397-421;  general  object 
of  his  coining,  430  et  seq. ;  Prophet, 
Priest  and  King,  431-436;  his  suffer- 
ings and  death,  sacrificial,  447-461, 
vicarious,  450-453;  Scriptural  state- 
ments of,  analyzed,  461-464;  his  In- 
tercession, 481-487;  union  between, 
and  the  believer,  529-538;  union 
between,  and  the  church,  590-597. 

Christian  Cosmology,  91-159. 

Christianity,  superiority  of,  to  Panthe- 
ism, 375. 

Chrysostom,  431. 

Church,  the,  fundamental  and  germi- 
nant  idea  of,  590;  visible  and  in- 
visible, 591 ;  prelatical  claims  unreal, 
591,  592;  nature  and  functions  of 
its  organization,  592,  593;  preserves 
and  defends  the  truth,  593,  594; 
law  and  means  of  its  growth  con- 
tained within  itself,  594-596;  inde- 
pendent of  the  state,  596;  its  ulti- 
mate universality  and  supremacy, 
596,  597. 

Cicero,  26,  298,  598. 

Clark,  Adam,  26. 

Clarke,  Samuel,  16. 

Clarke,  199. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  60S. 

Coleridge,  179,  182,  298,  465,  537. 


Conception,  miraculous,  its  proof  from 
Scripture,  389-392;  in  it  the  Logos 
assumed  a  true  and  complete  hu- 
manity, 392,  393. 

Confessions  of  Faith,  importance  of. 
593. 

Conscience,  178-190;  definitions  of,  178, 
179;  elements  of,  179,  180;  Scripture 
testimony  concerning  it,  180,  181; 
proof  of  a  moral  law,  181 ;  implies 
an  immutable  morality,  181,  182; 
feeling  of  obligation,  1*83;  involves 
moral  approval  or  disapproval,  183; 
personal  accountability,  184;  its  do- 
main, 184-186;  is  it  right  in  its  de- 
cisions, 186-190;  its  possession  does 
not  confer  personal  righteousness, 
190. 

Consciousness,  171. 

Consequents  of  Redemption,  491  et  seq. 

Continued  Creation,  theories  of,  103-105. 

Continuity  of  the  mental  states,  172. 

Cosmology,  Christian,  91-159. 

Cosmos,  the  divine,  54,  91,  92. 

Covenant  of  Life,  258,  259;  of  works, 
378;  of  redemption,  378;  of  grace, 
378. 

Covenants,  the,  377,  378,  388. 

Crawford,  318. 

Created  beings,  different  orders  of, 
98-101. 

Creation,  theories  in  regard  to,  93-95; 
relation  of  God  to,  95;  a  plan  not 
a  development,  95,  96;  preservation 
of,  102-105;  continued,  103,  104. 

Creationism,  167,  169. 

Creator  and  Creation,  91-96. 

Cudworth,  5,  164,  199. 

Cyril,  167.' 

D. 

Day,  Pres.,  124,  126,  133,  138,  178, 
238,  246,  252,  331. 

Dalgairns'  Theory  of  the  Soul,  165. 

Death,  598;  temporal,  266,  267;  spiritual, 
267-271;  eternal,  271-273. 

Do  Bow,  261. 

Decrees  of  God,  114-126;  characteristics 
of,  117-119,  proof  of  doctrine  of, 
120-122;  objections  to  considered, 
122-126. 

Delitzsch,  598. 

Depravity,  universal,  275,  276;  total, 
276,  277;  native,  277-282;  objec- 
tions to,  278-280;  physical,  309-312. 

Descartes,  246. 

Designations,  Scriptural,  of  divine  na- 
ture, 10,  11;  Theological,  11,  12. 

De  Wette,  281. 

Dichotomy,  163. 

Distinctions  in  the  Godhead,  50-73 
these  essential,  73-90;  personal, 
79,  80. 


INDEX. 


625 


Divine,  Benevolence,  38-43;  Efficien- 
cy, 103;  Holiness,  34-36;  Image, 
255-258;  Justice,  44-47;  Knowledge, 
objects  of,  24,  25;  Love,  37-43;  Na- 
ture and  Attributes,  3-47;  Pre- 
science, 26-28;  Providence,  106-114; 
Reason,  28,  29:  Unity,  50-53;  Ve- 
racity, 43,  44. 

Hivinity  and  Distinct  Personality  of  the 
Father,  51-53;  of  the  Son,  53-65; 
of  the  Spirit,  65-72. 

Divinity  of  Christ,  cumulative  proof  of, 
53-63;  Arian  objections  to,  63-65. 

Docetse,  392. 

Docetism,  396. 

Dorner,  59,  287,  294,  299,  363,  524. 

Dort,  Synod  of,  117,  543,  549. 

Douglass,  James,  107. 

Duns,  John,  261, 

Dwight,  Pres.,  127,  134,  208,  210,  218, 
252,  257,  554. 

E. 

Ebionitism,  396,  397. 

Ebrard,  66,  127,  144,  252,  287,  387,  431. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  6,  350,  364;  on 
Adam's  primitive  state,  257;  divine 
benevolence,  38,  39;  divine  decrees, 
120,  123;  end  of  God  in  creation, 
126,  128,  131,  132, 133, 138, 140, 141, 
145;  imputation,  308,  317;  justifica- 
tion, 524,  543,  545;  natural  ability, 
327,  329;  nature  of  virtue,  127,  141, 
198,  206,  213-218,  230;  necessity, 
250,  252;  original  sin,  259,  260,  277, 
380,  287,  317;  redemption.  384;  the 
will,  120, 124,  174,  233,  236,  238-240, 
213,  246-248,  250,  252. 

Edwaids,  Jonathan,  Jr.,  39,  123,  124, 
14(5,  251,  304,  545,  549,  550,  613. 

Efficiency,  divine,  theory  of,  308,  309. 

Elect  infants,  318,  322. 

Election,  doctrine  of,  501,  505-514; 
theories  of,  506-508. 

Ellicott,  281. 

Ellis,  George  E.,  312. 

Emmons,  Dr.,  103,  234,  257,  263,  308, 
309,  312,  319,  523,  554. 

End  of  God  in  creation,  126-146. 

Epicurus,  146. 

Episcopius,  85. 

Eschatology,  598  et  seq. 

Essential  Trinity,  73-90. 

Eutyches,  396. 

Eusebius,  431. 

Evil  angels,  99-101. 

Exercise  scheme,  554. 

F. 

Faith,  the  idea  of,  540;  questions  con- 
cerning, 541-544;  the  only  way  of 
receiving  Christ,  544,  545;  Is  man 
responsible  for  want  of?  543,  544. 


Faith  and  Philosophy,  (vol.),  239,  243, 
310,  330,  510. 

Fall,  the,  historically  viewed,  260-26*. 

Father,  the,  divinity  and  distinct  per- 
sonality of,  51-53. 

Finney,  Dr.,  206,  550. 

Fisher,  George  P.,  311. 

Fletcher,  589. 

Flint's  Philosophy  of  History,  109. 

Florke,  W.,  362. 

Fonseca,  note,  25. 

Foster,  John,  614. 

Franciscans,  the,  363. 

Free-agency,  does  it  account  for  flint 

149-153. 
.Fuller,  Andrew,  516,  614. 

G. 

Gennadius,  167. 

Gerhard,  29. 

Gess,  398. 

God,  knowledge  of,  3-6;  definition  of, 
7;  mode  of  our  conception  of,  7-9; 
Scriptural  designations  of,  10,  11; 
theological  definitions  of,  11,  12: 
attributes  of,  12-16;  as  Pure  Es- 
sence or  Being,  16-23;  as  the  Su- 
preme Reason  or  Understanding, 
23-29;  his  Will,  29-32;  his  Omnipo- 
tence, 32-34;  his  Holiness,  34-37; 
his  Love,  37-43;  his  Veracity,  43,  44; 
his  Justice,  44-48;  Trinity  of,  48-90; 
as  Creator,  91-96;  his  Providence, 
106-114;  his  Decrees,  114-126;  his 
end  in  Creation,  126-146;  his  Law, 
audits  requirements,  characteristics 
and  ends,  191-195. 

God-man,  the,  Person  of,  385  et  seq. 

Gonzales,  390. 

Good,  the  highest,  195-198. 

Governmental  theory  of  our  union  with 
Christ,  537,  538;  of  Atonement, 469. 

Grace,  effectual,  520,  521. 

Greek  Fathers,  255. 

Gregory  Nazianzen,  143. 

Gregory  of  Nyssa,  167. 

Grinfield,  E.  W.,  note,  54,  92,  252. 

Grote,  John,  209. 

Grotius,  469. 

Giider,  180. 

H. 

Hahn,  12,  16. 

Hall,  Robert,  216. 

Hamartology,  260  et  seq.;  the  fa] I, 
260-264;  its  penalty,  264-273;  its 
consequences,  273-283;  original  sin, 
283-302,  323-325;  counter  repre- 
sentations in  Scripture  and  experi- 
ence, 302-304;  theories  for  solving 
the  problem  of  sin,  304-325;  power 
of  sin  over  the  human  will,  326-336. 

Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.v  237,  246,  252.  542, 


826 


INDEX. 


Hampden,  Dr.,  522. 

Happiness  theories,  205-214. 

Harless,  281. 

Harris,  John,  127. 

Hase,  16,  431. 

Havernick,  10. 

Headships,  the  two,  344-352. 

Hegel,  4,  15,  136,  162,  251,  298. 

Hegelians,  398. 

Hengstenberg,  10,  259. 

Heraclius,  397. 

Hickok,  Dr.,  203,  326,  395. 

Highest  good,  195-198. 

Hilary,  167- 

Hodge,  A.  A.,  468. 

Hodge,  Charles,  284,  320,  325,  398,  442. 

Hofmann,  252. 

Holiness,  234,  236;  divine,  34-36;  defi- 
nitions of,  34;  questions  raised, 
35-36. 

Holy  Ghost,  sin  against,  views  concern- 
ing, of  Doderlein,  Cramer,  Rein- 
Imrd,  Michselis,  Bretschneider, 
Harless,  Weiss,  Liicke,  Bohmer, 
Stier,  Tholuck,  Olshausen,  J.  Mtil- 
ler,  Hofmann,  616. 

Holy  Love,  theories  of,  214-218. 

Holy  Spirit,  the,  divine  and  a  distinct 
Person  from  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  65-72;  objections,  69-71. 

Hopkins,  Dr.  Samuel,  308,  309,  312-319, 
554,  559. 

Hopldnsian  School,  31,  103. 

Hopkinsianisin,  234,  308,  309,  346,  554. 

Bortensius,  298. 

Howe,  John,  293. 

Huntingdon,  Joseph,  613. 

Hutterus  Redivivus,  252. 

Hypostases,  79. 


Idealism,  164. 

Ignatius,  384. 

Immaculate  Conception,  390-392. 

Immediate  Imputation,  theory  of,  304- 
308. 

Immortality,  598-600;  Scriptural  argu- 
ments for,  598,  599;  philosophical, 
599;  objections  to,  601,  602. 

Imputation,  283-316;  immediate,  284- 
286,  304-308;  mediate,  284,  285, 
314-323. 

Inability,  moral,  326-336;  natural,  327, 
328. 

Incarnation,  the,  341  et  seq. ;  in  its  re- 
lation to  sin,  343-352;  possible, 
from  the  constitution  of  the  divine 
nature,  352;  fact  and  not  doctrine, 
353;  its  relation  to  man's  needs, 
354-362;  gives  us  the  model  of  a 
perfect  man,  354-358;  gives  us  ac- 
cess to  God,  358-360;  in  order  to 
redemption,  3P>0-382;  on  the  part 


of  God,  362-368;  different  views  o£ 
369-372 ;  Socinian  or  Humanitarian, 
369;  Roman  Catholic,  370;  Oxford, 
370;  Arrrtinian,  370;  general  Prot- 
estant, 371;  outside  of  Christianity, 
371;  historical,  369-372;  philosoph- 
ical, 373-377;  related  to  divine  sov- 
ereignty and  the  covenants,  377, 
378;  as  unfolding  the  possibilities 
of  human  nature,  379-384. 

Infants,  elect,  318,  322 ;  salvation  of,  322. 

Intercession  of  Christ,  481-487;  both 
kingly  and  priestly,  481,  482;  his 
qualifications  for  it,  482,  483;  in 
what  it  consists,  483-486;  its  fruits, 
486,  487. 

Intermediate  State,  602-607;  historic 
facts  as  to  doctrine  of,  603,  604; 
no  scriptural  warrant  for,  604,  605; 
purgatory  606;  sleep  of  souls,  606, 
607;  views  of  Marcion,  Irenaeus, 
Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
Origen,  Augustine,  Roman  Catholiu 
Church,  Luther,  Calvin,  603,  604. 

Interpreting  Scripture,  right  mode  of, 
402,  406. 

Introduction  to  Christian  Theology, 
(vol.),  341,  353,  374. 

Irenaeus,  362,  363,  603. 

J. 

John  of  Damascus,  79,  390. 

Jerome,  167. 

Judgment,  the  last,  612. 

Justice,  divine,  44-47;  general  idea  of, 
44,  45;  proofs  of,  45;  distinctions 
in  respect  to,  45;  punitive,  why  ex- 
ercised, four  theories,  46,  47. 

Justification,  522-552;  preliminary  ex- 
planations, 522-525;  general  and 
scriptural  sense  of  the  term  and 
idea,  526-528;  involves  a  right- 
eousness, not  personal,  as  its 
ground;  528,  529;  Christ  its  ground, 
529-531;  how,  531-538;  through 
faith,  539-545;  difference  between 
Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant 
views  of,  545-547;  historical  state- 
ments of  548-551;  objections  to 
doctrine  of,  551,  552. 

Justin  Martyr,  143. 

Justinian,  167. 

K. 

Kant,  127,  128,  137,  144,  179,  187,  203, 

298,  465. 

Kenosis,  398,  418,  425. 
Keil,  388. 
King,  Arch.,  150. 
Kingdom  of  Redemption,  491-621;  lit 

consummation  in  time  and  iu 

nity,  598-621. 
Knapp,  26. 


INDEX. 


G27 


Knowledge,  divine,  objects  of,  24.  25. 
Krabbe,  268. 
Krummacher,  431. 
Kurtz,  3C3. 

L. 

Lactantius,  146,  220. 

Lasaulx,  168. 

Last  Judgment,  612. 

Launoy,  391. 

Law,  moral,  its  two  main  ends,  472; 
in  relation  to  divine  holiness,  472, 
473;  to  Christ's  atonement,  473-476; 
of  God,  its  requirements,  charac- 
teristics and  ends,  191-195. 

Liebner,  363,  398. 

Leibnitz,  150,  154,  164,  248,  298. 

Leighton,  Dr.,  360. 

Leo  the  Great,  167. 

Lewis,  Tayler,  231. 

Liberty  and  Necessity,  250-252. 

Limborch,  102. 

Locke,  246 

Logos,  the,  28,  73,  74,  75,  87,  88,  392, 
393. 

Love,  divine,  37-43;  definitions  of,  37; 
proofs  of,  37:  divisions  of,  as  to  its 
objects,  38;  modifications  of,  38;  as 
benevolence,  38-43. 

Love,  Holy,  Theories  of,  214-218. 

Luther,  11,  124,  167,  307,  542,  548,  606, 
616. 

M. 

Mackintosh,  179. 

Maclaurin,  John,  206. 

Magee,  452. 

Malan,  Dr.  Caesar,  543. 

Man,  as  a  moral  being,  161-191 ;  his  re- 
lation to  the  Creator,  161;  to  the 
rest  of  the  material  creation,  161; 
to  the  spiritual  realm,  161,  162; 
to  his  race,  162;  his  individuality, 
163;  union  of  his  body  and  soul, 
163, 164;  his  soul's  origin,  166;  his 
personality,  170;  powers  and  facul- 
ties of  his  soul,  173-176 ;  its  original 
tendencies,  176-1 78;  his  conscience, 
178-190;  his  highest  spiritual  ca- 
pacities, 190,  191 ;  as  a  moral  agent, 
his  personal  relations  to  the  law  of 
God,  232-236;  his  primeval  moral 
state,  252-258;  his  destination  if  he 
had  continued  obedient,  258,  259; 
as  fallen,  273  et  seq. ;  his  redemp- 
tion, 341  et  seq. 

Manning,  Archb.,  238,  240. 

Marcion,  603. 

Marsh,  Pres.,  300. 

Martensen,  169,  252,  363,  431,  481. 

Martin,  (B.  C.,)  his  Via  Futura,  322. 

Martin,  -John,  127. 

Martyr,  Justin,  167. 


Materialism,  164,  346. 

Maurice,  P.  D.,  171,  614,  617. 

McCosh,  Dr.,  220. 

Mediate  Imputation,  284,  285,  314-323, 

Mediator,  the,  person  of,  385  et  seq.; 

work   of,   430  et   seq.;   three-fold 

office  of,  431  et  seq. 
Melancthon,  167,  307,  543,  548. 
Messiah,  the,  379,  381,  382,  383,  431-434. 
Methodists,  26. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  209. 
Millenarian  hypothesis,  608;  objections 

to,  608,  609. 
Modalism,  73. 
Molina.  25. 
Monophysites,  396. 
Monothelites,  396,  397. 
Moral,  ability,  328;  character,  seat  of, 

236-250;   inability,    326-336;    law, 

472-476;  Science,  Wayland's,  179, 

193 

Morell,  164. 
Mozley,  509,  510. 
Mtiller,  Julius,  124,  192,  194,  221,  229, 

240,  241,  243,  252,  260,  268,  281, 

282,  287,  310,  313,  333,  365,   390, 

431,  616. 

N. 

Natural  ability,  326  336. 
Nature  and  attributes,  divine,  3-47. 
Neander,  287. 

Necessity,    Natural,   250;    Moral,   250; 
Metaphysical  or  Philosophical,  250 
Nestorianism,  396. 
New  Platonists,  93. 
Newton,  note,  19. 
Nicene  Creed,  362. 
Nitzsch,  431. 
Norton,  Andrews,  322. 

0. 

Omnipotence  of  God,  32-34;  idea  of, 
32;  definition  of,  32;  proof  of,  32, 
33;  limits  of,  33;  Schleiermacher'a 
definition  of,  33,  34;  objects  of,  34. 

Orders  of  created  beings,  98-101. 

Origen,  143,  167,  395,  603,  606. 

Original  sin,  283-323;  objections,  323- 
325;  Tendencies  of  man's  soul, 
176-178. 

Owen,  John,  317,  364.  522,  616. 

P. 

Paley,  40,  206. 
Pantheism,  136,  346. 
Parker,  Theodore,  614. 
Pascal,  89,  352,  382,  383. 
Payne,  Dr.,  317. 
Pelagian,  views,  279,  312,  517. 
Pelagianism,  255,  267. 
Pelagius,  167,  322,  529;  his  3ontroveray 
with  Augustine,  548. 


628 


INDEX. 


Penalty  of  sin.  264-273. 

Perfectionism,  579-585 ;  Pelagian  theory 
of,  580;  Arminian,  580,  Roman 
Catholic,  580;  modern,  581-583;  ob- 
jections to,  583-585. 

Perrone,  322,  390,  391. 

Perseverance  of  the  saints,  585;  argu- 
ments for  the  doctrine,  586;  expla- 
nations of,  586-587;  objections  to, 
587. 

Person  of  Christ,  341  et  seq.;  (See 
Christ);  Savoy  and  Westminster 
Confessions  concerning,  385;  here- 
sies, objections,  and  difficulties  con- 
cerning, 396-421;  entire  result  as 
to,  421-429. 

Personal  distinctions  in  the  Trinity, 
79-90;  identity,  171,  172;  relations, 
man's,  to  the  Law  of  God,  232-236. 

Personality,  170. 

Philo,  4,  167,  344,  369. 

Philosophy  of  Christianity,  73,  373-377. 

Plato,  4,  11,  93,  167,  168,  297,  494. 

Power  to  the  contrary,  329,  330. 

Povv'ers  and  faculties  of  the  soul,  173-176. 

Prayer,  577-579. 

Predestination,  501-504,  objections  to, 
509-514. 

Pre-established  harmony,  theory  of,  164. 

Pre-existence,  167;  hypothesis  of,  313, 
314. 

Prentiss,  George  L.,  322. 

Preservation  of  Creation,  102-105; 
sources  of  proof  of  the  doctrine, 
102;  its  purport,  102,  103. 

Primeval  state  of  man,  252-258;  of  in- 
nocence, 253;  of  the  divine  image, 
253,  254;  not  of  confirmed  holiness, 
552. 

Principia,  Newton's,  19. 

Prophet,  Priest,  and  King,  431-436. 

Providence,  divine,  Geoeral  statements 
in  regard  to  the  doctrine,  106,  107; 
proof  of,  108-110;  distinction  as  to 
general  and  particular,  110,  111; 
modes  of,  111-114. 

Prudentius,  167. 

Punishment,  endless,  614-618  ;  rela- 
tions of  doctrine  of,  620. 


Quenstedt,  127. 
Quintilian,  277. 


R, 


Realism  and  Nominalism,  288,  319. 

Realists  and  Nominalists,  13. 

Reason,  divine,  28,  29. 

Redemption,  antecedents  of,  3-337;  it- 
self, 341  et  seq. ;  Kingdom  of,  491- 
501;  Christianity  looks  forward 
to  its  realization,  492-495;  con- 
trast between  this  and  human  in- 


ventions, 495-498;  =iome  of  its 
characteristics,  498-500;  its  glory 
and  beauty,  500. 

Reformation,  the,  256. 

Reformed  Confessions,  on  assurance  of 
faith,  543. 

Regeneration,  553-574;  Roman  Catholic 
view  of,  553;  Church  of  England,  553; 
Pelagian,  554;  Rationalistic,  554;  ex- 
ercise scheme,  554;  taste  theory,554; 
change  in  governing  purpose,  554; 
self-love,  theory  of,  555,  556;  evan- 
gelical view  of,  556,  557;  Scriptural 
representations  of,  558,  559;  its 
connection  with  other  truths,  559; 
its  necessity,  560 ;  its  characteristics, 
560-563;  its  author,  563,  564;  its 
method,  564-566 ;  its  means,  566-569 ; 
obligatory,  569,  570;  conscious  pro- 
cesses of  the  soul  in,  570-572. 

Relations,  personal,  of  man  to  the  law 
of  God,  232,  236.' 

Renan,  383. 

Repentance,  difference  between  Roman 
Catholic  and  Protestant  views  of, 

572,  573;  Protestant  view  stated, 

573,  574. 

Reprobation,  508,  509. 
Resurrection  of  the  body,  610-612. 
Reubelt,  398. 

Richards,  Dr.,  240,  252,  528,  550. 

Ridgeley,  435. 

Robertson,  465. 

Roman  Catholic  view  of  faith,  541,  542, 

548;  of  grace,  256;  of  justification, 

539;  of  regeneration,  553. 
Rothe,  26,  221,  366,  431,  465. 

S. 

Sabellianism,  73,  74;  remarks  on,  77-79. 

Sacramental  view  of  our  union  with 
Christ,  536. 

Sacrifices,  pagan,  443-445;  vicarious, 
446  et  seq. ;  Old  Testament,  445-447; 
Old  Testament  prophecies  of  sacri- 
ficial sufferings  of  Christ,  447,  448; 
New  Testament  witness  to,  448-453 ; 
objections  stated  and  answered, 
453-461;  Scriptural  statements  of, 
analyzed,  461-464. 

Sanctification,  575-585;  its  nature,  575, 
576;  its  means,  577-579. 

Sartorius,  258. 

Satan,  99-101. 

Saumur,  308. 

Saybrook,  Wm.  Hart,  218. 

Schelling,  251,  398. 

Scheme,  selfish,  206,  207;  of  tendency 
to  greatest  happiness,  207-210;  self 
love,  210-213. 

Schleiermacher,  13,  14, 15,  33, 100,  251 
390.  398,  431,  537. 

SclMEttgen,  431. 


INDEX. 


629 


Scholastics,  104,  167. 

Schneckenburger,  484. 

Schweizer,  127,  144. 

Scientia  Media,  25,  26. 

Scotus,  363. 

Scripture,  right  mode  of  interpreting, 
402-406. 

Second  Advent,  608,  609. 

Self-existence  of  God,  16,  17. 

Selfish  scheme,  206. 

Seneca,  297. 

Sensibilities,  the,  176. 

Servetus,  363. 

Sin,  permission  of,  146-159;  is  it  the 
necessary  means  of  the  greatest 
good,  147-149;  does  free  agency  ac- 
count 1'or  it,  149-153;  reasons  for 
its  permission  are  beyond  our 
knowledge,  153-156;  definitions  of, 
234-236;  doctrine  concerning,  see 
Hamartoloqy,  260  et  seq. ;  original, 
283-325. 

Smalley,  191,  257,  326. 

Smith,  Henry  Boynton,  reference  to, 
his  Christian  Apologetics,  3,  4,  8; 
Faith  and  Philosophy,  239,  243, 
310,  330;  Introduction  to  Chris- 
tian Theology,  109,  341,  353,  374; 
Bealism  and  Nominalism,  (art.), 
319;  Kev.  of  Whedon  on  the  Will, 
239. 

Smith,  John  Pye,  24,  438. 

Socinian  view  of  our  relation  to  Christ, 
536. 

Socinians,  397,  598. 

Socinus,  363. 

Socrates,  297,  379. 

Son,  the,  Divinity  and  distinct  person- 
ality of,  53-65. 

Sophocles,  297. 

South,  Dr.,  258,  453. 

Sovereignty,  divine,  377. 

Spinoza,  4,  14,  375. 

Spiritual  Life  theory  of  our  union  with 
'  Christ,  536,  537. 

Spring,  Dr.,  126,  133. 

Stapfer,  144,  308,  317. 

Stearns,  J.  R,  523. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  180. 

Stier,  268. 

Strauss,  127. 

Stuart,  Moses,  308,  320,  614,  615,  617. 

Sublapsarian  view,  263. 

Supererogation,  547. 

Supralapsarianism,  117,  263. 

Swedenborg,  9. 

Swedenborgians,  612. 

Synesius,  167. 

Synod  of  Dort,  543,  549. 


Tabte  theory,  554. 
Taylor,  Isaac,  607. 


T. 


Taylor,  N.  W.,  149,  150,  210,  281,  296, 

310,  312,  336,  470. 
Temptation,  the,  260,  264. 
Tendencies,    original,    of  man's   soul, 

176-178. 

Tennyson  quoted,  213. 
Tertullian,  9,  167,  390,  603,  606. 
Theodicy,  the,  146-159. 
Theodoretus,  167,  431. 
Theology,   Christian,  Introduction  to^ 

(vol.),  341,  353,  374. 
Theories,  Holy  Love,  214-218. 
Tholuck,  A.,  281,  284,  287,  615. 
Thomasius,  170,  252,  287,  362,  398. 
Townley,  H.  C.,  322. 
Traducianism,  168,  169. 
Transubstantiation,  536. 
Trichotomy,  166. 
Trinity,  48-90;  preliminary  remarks  on, 

48-50;   outline  of  course  on,    50; 

manifested,  50-73;  permanent,  72; 

essential,  73-90. 
Turretine,  543. 

Twesten,  22,  101,  127,  131,  287. 
Tyler,  B.,  252. 
Tyler,  William  S.,  297. 

U. 

Union  between  Christ  and  the  believer, 
502  et  seq.,  531;  its  proof  from 
Scripture,  532,  533;  from  other  doc- 
trines and  analogies,  534,  535;  its 
nature,  535,  536;  opinions  con- 
cerning classified  and  criticised, 
536-539. 

Unitarian  view  of  depravity,  312. 

Unitarians,  56. 

Unity  of  God,  48-51. 

Universalism,  613,  614. 

Universe,  the,  created,  as  set  forth  in 
Scripture,  96-98. 

Upham,  Prof.  T.,  248. 

Utilitarianism,  209,  210. 

V. 

Veracity,  divine,  43-44. 

Vestiges  of  Creation,  95. 

Vicarious  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ, 
450-453;  objections  to  considered, 
453-461. 

Virtue,  nature  of,  formal  theories  con- 
cerning, 198-218;  acting  according 
to  fitness  of  things,  198,  199;  pro- 
moting  the  end  of  our  being,  199; 
conformity  to  relations  of  things, 
199,  200;  conformity  to  the  Will 
of  God,  200,  203;  Kant's  theory, 
203;  Hickok's,  203,  204;  happi* 
ness,  205-214;  holy  love  theories, 
214-218;  hints  as  to  a  theory  o{ 
218-231. 

Von  Lasaulx,  441. 

Von  Orelli,  388. 


630 


INDEX. 


W. 

Warburton,  598,  599. 

Wardlaw,  544. 

Waterland,  438. 

Wayland,  179,  193,  199,  208,  209. 

Wendeliu,  144. 

Weasel,  363. 

Western  Church,  255. 

Westminster  standards,  on  assurance, 
542,  543;  divine  providence,  106; 
elect  infants,  318;  election,  505; 
the  fall,  260,  263,  273;  foreordina- 
tion,  250,  252;  Hades,  604;  justifi- 
cation, 525;  liberty  of  choice,  243; 
mystical  union,  531;  new  birth, 
517;  person  of  Christ,  385. 

Whately,  Arch.,  150,  359,  607. 

Whedon  on  the  Will,  Eeview  of,  239. 

Wieseler,  527. 


Will,  the,  176,  230-250;  idea  of,  237, 
238;  power  of,  238,  239;  its  self-de- 
termination,  239;  its  modes  of  ac- 
tion, 240,  241;  its  liberty  or  free, 
dom,  242-245;  motives,  245-250 
Divine,  attributes  of,  29,  32;  idea 
of,  29;  definitions  of,  29,  30;  distinc. 
tions  of,  as  to  its  objects,  30;  othei 
distinctions,  31,  32. 

Wisdom,  divine,  28;  proof  of,  28;  defi- 
nition of,  28,  29. 

Wisner,  W.  C.,  126,  127,  130. 

Wolff,  11. 

Woods,  Leonard,  104,  240,  551. 


Xenophon,  297. 
Zwingle,  143. 


Z. 


INDEX  OF  SCf^IPTUHE  PASSAGES. 


GENESIS. 

DEUTERONOMY. 
iv.    35  

21,50 

;           f.f. 

...-5>  9Z 

51 

vi.     4  

21,50 

'        g  

xviii.     15  

431 

1U^>  -"oj*  ^^ 

xviii.     18  

388 

}•     29  

-"oo 

2C3 

xxi.      1-9  ... 

446 

/•      6l  

-"OJ 

xxix.     29  

3* 

tfi7 

xxx.     6  

559 

1U/ 

2C2 

302 

•»C-     2C8 

51 

ll*      */  

ii.      19    20 

-5j>  zo° 

2^7 

ii.     2C.. 

.  .   2£J^ 

I  SAMUEL. 

iii.     7. 

£ 

.2c;7,  267 

..  108 

iii.      14-10 

264 

xxiv       10           .        ... 

180 

iii.      15  

..^88,  -?QI 

iii.     22  

268 

II  SAMUEL 

v  

292 

471 

V.        I  

253 

65 

•287' 

V.        I,    3.  .  , 

.2CJ4 

v.      3  . 

168 

v.     24  

599 

180 

VI.      2  

99 

ii-     44  

vi.     5  

275,  276 

180 

viii.     21  

(2)    276 

viii.     38  

27C 

ix.     6  

254 

'/J 

x 

292 

^99 

xv.     6. 

C26 

I  ° 

xvii.     i  

.  .   W 

II  KINGS 

xxii.     8  

....          38 

xxxv.      18  

166 

iyy 

xlix.      10  

3«8 

206 

v-     */  

xxiv.     4         . 

282 

EXODUS. 
vii.     i. 

^7 

II  CHRONICLES. 

xix.     7  

45 

xx.      5... 

2I>  5°»  OI 

.      "?O2 

xxix.      14 

446 

NEHEMIAH. 

ix.     6  

102 

xxxiii.     23  

*y 

.  .  "5 

xxxiv.     6  

44 

OB. 

i      21               

167 

.268 

NUMBERS. 

.    4C 

xiv.     18.. 

•IO2 

IX.       2 

271; 

xxxfii.     10.  .  . 

..  44 

ix.     12... 

..  11 

631 


632 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


IX.       2O  

584 

ciii. 
civ. 
civ. 
cvi. 
cvi. 
ex. 
ex. 
cxiv. 
cxv. 
cxix. 
cxxxv. 
cxxxv. 
cxxxvi. 
cxxxviii. 
cxxxix. 
cxxxix. 
cxl. 
cxliii. 
cxliii. 

PROVERI 

iii. 
vii. 
viii. 
xiv. 
xvi. 
xvi. 
xvi. 
xvi. 

XX. 

xxi. 

ECCLESI 

vii. 
vii. 
ix. 

xii. 

ISAIAH. 
ii. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vii. 
viii. 
ix. 
ix. 

X. 

xi. 
xi. 
xiv. 
xiv. 
xix. 

XXV. 

xxvi. 

xl. 
xl. 
xl. 
xl. 

xl. 

IQ 

1  08 

xi.     7  

xii.     6  

28 

27 

1  08 

xii.     10  

167 

38 

282 

xii.     13  

23 

xiv.      1-4  

268 

45 

388 

xiv.     4  

275 

4 

43  J 

xiv.      c,.  .  . 

122 

17 

xv.      14  .    . 
xix.     25  

.  .  .    275,   282,  291 

„ 

7""     II^ 

..5qq,  6  10 

64 

xxvii.     6.. 

.   180 

21 

xxxvi.     26  

18 

6 

I  08     115 

xxxvii.     23  

45 

I—  q 

xxxviii—  xii  

1  08 

c 

PSALMS. 
ii.     7. 

.     .  .21,   23 

14,  ic 

276 

v  

276 

2  
IO  

7O 

Vlll  

viii.     i  

388 

3S. 
iq  

28 

viii.     5  

132 

*~ 

22  

xiv 

28 

8 

277 

xvii       i  c 

A  •  •     5 

j 

1  08 

5  4»  599 

4.  

q  

...;  108 

166 

33  

I  IO 

q  

27C 

I08 

xxxvi.                .  . 

276 

A.STES. 

xxxvi.     6     

102 

xxxvii      28 

586 

xxxviii 

1  80 

2Q  

xl 

388 

3  

•"•54 

276 

xiv 

j°° 

433 

xiv.     6  7 

C7 

xiv.     7       

"65 

xiv.     8. 

C7 

xlix       i  ? 

I  

c8 

xlix       iq 

c   8 

8  

li 

180 

10  

...276 

li      A 

280 



58    85 

li.     c 

168    2qi 

I  2  

li      6   7 

c8 

li.     10  

li      12 

275,563,575 
7O 

5 

» 

r  

1  08 

Ixvi      q 

I  O2 

3X8 

Ixviii       1  8 

604.     60  S 

2  

6    70 

Ixxiii      i  "• 

c 

!  !8 

"  '  '     599 

j  

-600 

1  08 

wwy 

£-7 

iq  

18 

61 

56 

r  7 

3.  

58,  76 

J/ 

C7     eg 

76 

cm.     13.. 

51 

13  

Is 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


633 


*ll          A 

iS  6* 

vii.     13 

388,  609 

vii       14    18 

•7Q5 

167 

xii      2 

i-.  j 

5  ' 

xliv.     8  

61 

181 

xlv.     5  

55 
61,  108 

xi.     8  

19 

xlvi.     10  

121 

JOEL. 
ii.     28  32 

66 

xlvi.      II  

31,   "8,  121 

277 

JONAH. 

IV.        II  

282 

xlix.     15  
liii               

388,461 

liii       C 

461 

MlCAH. 

V.       2  

388 

liii      8      

462 

liii       II 

HAGGAI. 

n.     7  

388 

Iv       I    2 

4U  j 

•j-yr 

Iv.     13        ••    .  . 

„  .  .470 

ZECHARIAH. 

ii.     10  

76 

IY-     3  

lix 

276 

vi.     13  

431 

lx      9  

Ixi       I 

.  .70,  4TI 

MALACHI. 

Ixi       3 

iii.     i         

.  .  co,  388 

Ixiii       IO   II 

7O 

iv      C    6. 

387,  388 

Ixiii       16  

Ixv       2            .... 

7O 

MATTHEW 

Ixvi.      I  

21 

i      t8 

g 

i      21 

58   463 

JEREMIAH. 

i      21-23  

•  •  387 

xin.     23  

335 

xvii.     I  

1  80 

i-     25  

392 

xvii.     5  

62 

iii.     2..  

HI 

xvii.     9  

276 

f,Q      >7~ 

xvii.      10  

56 

os>  72 

*x.     9  

1  80 

iv.     I  
iv.     4  

392 
177 

xxiii.     23  
xxiv.     7  

21 

562,563 

iv.     10  

(2)  61 

XXX.        I  

.67 

Q 

xxxi.     31  

586 

5>  621 

xxxi.     33  

67,  562 

v.     17  

43 

xxxii.      17  

33 

v<     *7  *9  

94 

xxxii.      18  

296 

v.    45  

37 

xxxii.     40  

(2)  586 

y.    40  

cXc 

vi      25  .. 

1  66 

Cfi-2 

vi.     26  

108 

502 

177 

302 

vii.     12  

221 

cfin 

ix.     13  

462 

XXI         27 

5°9 

1  08 

x.     28  

166,  599 

xi.     24  

613 

559 

xi.     25  

5 

599 

xi      26         

506 

DANIEL. 

xi      27       

5,  54,  56 

..  396 

479 

iv.     -u.  W  .  . 

.   108 

xii.     20... 

.  •  33? 

634 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


xii. 

71,   72... 

68, 

615 

LUKE. 

xii. 

4O  

605 

,. 

C&2 

xiii. 

31,  39  

6oq 

16    17 

5°3 

60   ->87 

xiii. 

76-47,  40   . 

600 

28 

xiv. 

19  

SQ2 

.* 

72 

& 

XV. 

IQ.  . 

276. 

30? 

a*  

22 

xvi. 

16  

(2)  86, 

276 

33  

•  •  •  i  «5yu 

xvi. 

21  

3Q2 

i 

47 

xvi. 

24  

276 

72 

78 

xvi. 

27    

,..609, 

613 

..* 

7O2 

xviii. 

3  

28?; 

560 



oy^ 

z8 

xviii. 

10  

•99 



3" 

xviii. 

n...  

462, 

46} 

4    

v2;  39^ 

OQJ 

xix. 

4  

?.92 

xix 

13  

282 

4/  

7Q2 

XX. 

18  

380 

h& 

XX. 

28  

.  .442,  450,  461, 

462 

2 

7Q2 

xxii. 

23  

610 

18 

7O      d.7^ 

xxii. 

23-33  

SQ8 

/  w>   too 

462 

xxii. 

37  

IQ3 

7C 

xxii. 

37-39  

221 

OD  

ee 

166 

xxiii. 

37  

479 

jj  

21 

7Q2 

xxiv. 

24     

oy 

xxiv. 

3,  36  

6OQ 

•*/  

C27 

xxiv. 

64, 

302 

29  

66 

XXV. 

13  

613 

5 

I  IO 

XXV. 

28,  31  

609 

6K 

XXV. 

31-46  

.  .  389,  600,  609, 

xiv 

17 

..  479 

XXV. 

32  

613 

177 

XXV. 

41-44  

615 

27      *I27 

xxvi. 

2S       

461,  462, 

463 

61  c 

xxvi. 

77..  . 

(2) 

392 

O7 

xxvi. 

38  

5 

v/ 

IJ78 

.  xxvi. 

39  

.64 

17 

282 

xxvi. 

54,  64  

S8q 

7  I 

789 

xxvii. 

CO  

302 

o1  

O"7 

4.62 

xxvii. 

52  

604 

608 

xxviii. 

18  

•^4 

7Q2 

xxviii. 

IQ   ..  . 

68,  72 

,86 

4l  

6  10 

xxviii. 

2O  .  . 

.  ss 

27  

66 

xxii 

20 

461 

xxii* 

77.  . 

389 

MARK. 

xxii 

i. 

j 

788 

xxiii. 

97,  607 

i. 

10  

"68 

xxiii. 

46 

64,  166,  392 

ii. 

8. 

434 

ii. 

17.  . 

462 

xxiv. 

26 

.  .  46  1  ,  462 

lii. 

2Q  

615 

xxiv. 

27.  . 

::  ...389 

vii. 

.177 

xxiv 

IQ     AQ 

392 

viii. 

71 

44O 

46        ' 

..  440 

ix. 

12  

7.89 

xxiv 

47 

.....276 

ix. 

2  " 
.6K 

61 

xii. 

28-34  

xii. 

2Q. 

21 

,   CI 

JOHN. 

xii. 

2Q    7  1 

221 

i 

...«.  57,  61 

xiii. 

2O 

rc6 

i. 

I,   7.  .  , 

xiii. 

•22 

.64 

392 

i. 

I     14  

74,  388,  393. 

xiv. 

24 

.461 

i. 

3  

54,  92 

277 

xiv. 

34  

36.., 

64 

i. 

12,  13  

27* 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


635 


•J... 

14    , 

C7     ?6,  86    781;     C72 

xi 

4           • 

'  'i59 

. 

i    18 

86 

XI 

13. 

coX 

j. 

18 

xi. 

24 

609,    610 

i. 

23 

58 

xi. 

25  

cog 

29.  . 

(3)  462,  463,  479 

xi. 

26      

268 

ii 

xi. 

2Q 

86 

ii. 

IQ.  .  . 

64 

xi. 

.  .(2)  392 

ii. 

24.  .  . 

..56 

xi. 

38    41 

iii. 

2  

434 

xii. 

24. 

611 

aii. 

3  

559,  560 

xii. 

25 

276 

iii. 

5  

66,  276,  295 

xii. 

27 

•    •   ' 

OA,   3Q2 

iii. 

6  

168,  276,  280,  291,  295,  562 

xii. 

28  

.  ..132 

iii. 

7.  ... 

.  .  2760  584 

xii 

37    41 

58 

iii. 

8.     . 

C.62 

xii 

4O 

"276 

iii. 

13.  .  .  . 

C7 

xii. 

47 

462,  4.6^    47Q 

iii. 

14,  ic 

xii 

48 

600 

iii. 

f 
16  

••58,  75,  86,  352,  462,  586 

xii 

4Q 

iii. 

16,  18 

xiii. 

2  1 

3Q2 

iii, 

17.    . 

.  .463,  479 

xiv. 

•3 

7O 

iii. 

18... 

540 

xiv. 

1  ;:  ; 

iii. 

19.  . 

0277,,  318,  479 

xiv. 

13      14 

578 

iii. 

78 

.  .  59 

xiv. 

14 

62 

iii. 

31  ... 

...:.;..  54,  76 

xiv. 

Jt 

..562 

iii. 

34.  .. 

70 

xiv. 

16 

71 

iv, 

6.    ... 

..302 

xiv. 

16  26 

66.  67.  68 

iv. 

24  

71 

xiv. 

18 

70 

v. 

17.  .  .  . 

60,  86 

xiv. 

23 

v. 

18  

52,  59,  86 

xiv. 

28    

g- 

v. 

19.  .  .  . 

60 

XV. 

2    

587 

v. 

21,   25 

610 

XV0 

c 

..77C.     CQI 

V. 

22-25. 

613 

XV. 

i::.:..:: 

v. 

23 

52,  6l 

XV 

462 

v. 

24  .  .  .  . 

607 

XV. 

v. 

26 

..17,65,  88 

XV. 

26 

..  68 

v. 

28.   (2) 

2Q.                                        .     .6OQ 

xvi. 

7 

66 

V. 

39,  46 

.389 

xvi. 

13.  14  . 

68 

VI. 

33,  38 

.     7C 

xvi. 

l6,  22 

70 

vi. 

36-30. 

C06 

xvi. 

28. 

.  .74,  76,  352 

vi. 

37.  . 

xvii. 

435 

vi. 

37,    3Q 

.586 

xvii. 

52 

vi. 

38. 

53 

xvii. 

2 

506,  (2)  586 

vi. 

39.  . 

609 

xvii. 

21,  44,  52,  64 

vi. 

44 

.    335,  511,  519 

xvii. 

132 

vi. 

.462 

xvii. 

.  o53»  74,  352 

vi. 

56 

532 

xvii 

.  .  60.  367 

vi. 

67 

.    53   74,  394 

xvii. 

12  

586 

vi. 

69 

;.  5  _  86 

xvii. 

132 

vii. 

37 

xvii 

21 

367,  535 

vii. 

70 

22 

.  .367,  532 

viii 

21 

;;;  268 

xvii. 

23    . 

367(2),  535 

42 

74 

xvii 

24 

.  .352,486,  586 

viii  . 

44 

268 

xvii 

26   . 

..c,  367  (2) 

viii. 

8     " 

.  c?_  74.    -204 

xix. 

7 

59 

ix. 

2 

167 

xix. 

3O 

392 

ix 

xix 

34             .     . 

•  •  392 

X. 

'    * 

462 

XX. 

17  

65,86 

TC 

.53.  54    45O 

XX 

392 

17     l8 

462 

XX. 

28      ...... 

57 

X. 

30... 

.  .52,  60 

xxi. 

17.- 

..56 

636 


INDEX  02'  SCK1PTURE  PASSAGES. 


ACTS. 

i. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 

i       !!' 
n. 

ni. 
hi. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
i      iv. 
iv. 
v. 

Vo 

v. 

V. 

vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 

X. 

xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiv0 

XV. 
XV. 

xvi. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xvii. 
xix. 

XX. 
XX. 
XX. 

xxiii. 
xxiii. 
xxiv. 
xxiv. 
xx  vi. 
xx  vi. 
xxviii. 

24  

r6 

ROMANS. 

i. 

i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 

ii. 

ii. 

ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 

iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 

iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 

IV. 

v. 
v. 

v. 

V. 

v. 

V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 

v. 

v. 

V. 

V. 

v. 

V. 

V. 
V. 
V. 

1,3,4 

66 

16  

66, 

389 

122 

609 
392 
,  76 
609 

620 

6n 
66 

»  4-  - 

23  

108, 

4.  ... 
16 

u 

539 

266 
.38 
613 
600 

281 

277 

292 
276 
276 
292 

462 
526 
4§ 
529 

530 
529 
527 
276 

527 
5°7 

461 

(2) 

463 
461 

3I2 

253 
294 

344 
313 

g 

523 
527 
619 

119 

523 

25  

1  7 

27  

2O 

18  33 

7O,    31.. 

24 

31    . 

33 

.60 

6 

„     , 

6-1  1 

l8 

"So 

7 

21  

.  .  .60,  608, 

14 

181. 

2. 

1C. 

181  (2\ 

8  

IQ 

i  \*f 

12 

.276     462% 

463 
92 

2Q 

K    . 

C 

276, 

26               .    . 

609 

122 

67 

IO—  12 

27..  . 

JO-I8 
IQ 

3,  4 

276,   (2) 

.64 
609 

463 
02 

2O.  .  .  . 
2O-28 
21 

276,  303,  36l,  527,   (2) 

31 

/- 

C.O.. 

22 

5     j 

ci.  . 

.   7o, 

479 

8 

61 

24.  .  .  . 

.  .463, 

56 

2C  .  . 

.442,    4^2,    462,     (2) 

CO 

1  66 

26 

C.Q,  60    .  , 

28... 

•     **     ' 

38 

70 

•2 

^26 

2,  4     

60 

C.  . 

^26      C27     S2Q* 

27,  32 

389 
85 

6 

^    /-'    £28*    C2Q 

73.  . 

7  .  . 

O  9> 

38... 

463 
463 

^66 

60 

Q    . 

C26, 

39  

48  (2).. 

22  . 

57.  .00.. 

108, 

23,    24 

26  

2Q3, 

28  

j 

.  .  C23, 

519 
440 
132 
162 
108 
292 

$ 

613 

60 

2  

2,  3  

6.   . 

24        

8  

37,  462 

24-26  

25  

Q2, 

IO.  .  .  . 

26  

ic8, 

12  

12-14 
12,   15 
12-19 
12-21 
I2,seq 
13.    . 

159,  162,  1  68,  305,  391, 

28  

.  .  .  .102,  161,  534, 

3O,  31.. 

31  (2). 

276    2Q2 

2  

.  .  146, 

IO     II 

166 

583 
442 
181 
610 
.610 

268 

26  

28 

c.7  e.8. 

14. 

I  

16.,  . 

3O2 

6  

17 

' 

14  

18  ... 

.  .  .  276,  463,  480,  523, 

16  ... 

181 

389 
611 
.67 

IQ 

[528,   530, 
'4.63      C.23     C27     £28 

22  

23.. 

2O 

25  

21.. 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


637 


vi. 

vi. 

VI. 

vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
viii. 
viii. 

Vlll. 

viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 

X. 
X. 
X. 

xi. 

xi. 
xi. 
xi. 
xi. 
xi. 
::i. 

xi. 
xii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 
xiv. 
xiv. 
xiv. 

XV. 

xvi. 

I  COR  i  IN 

i. 
i. 

i. 
i. 

i. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 

V. 

V. 
V. 

vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vii. 
vii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
viii. 
ix. 

X. 
X. 
X. 

xi. 
xi. 
xii. 
xii. 
xii. 
xii. 
xii. 
xiii. 

76 

4-6  

.276 

9,  10  

76 

bl  l 

Tny 

10  

462 

i    sea 

c?F> 

16  

"526 

5  ... 

52° 

181 

21  

272 

8,  10 

23  

159,  268 

12 

.  .  .  266,  300,  302,  507 

1C. 

302 

480 

6  

272 

17 

C26 

13,   14  

584 

6 

izu 

14  

.  .  (2)  276 

27 

o^ 

I4-2C.  .  , 

27C 

THIANS. 
2  

^*>  zo 

62 

I  5  -2  5     - 

27$ 

18  

280    77C, 

22     27 

177 

24  

268 

CQ7 

18  

.  160 

I-I  I 

27C 

21  

o^y 

67 

2. 

CCO 

23.  .  .  . 

"j 

4,61 

3.    . 

559 

462 

26  

.  509 

6 

266    280 

30  487,523, 
r.   1.1     , 

526,528,559,575 

c67 

7 

2QI     7.7C. 

8  

^y1*  JJD 

77C 

:"..::..: 

J^J 
...   .         c,87 

Q 

;  •  •  jjj 

•207        C.77 

8  

7.Q4 

O—  II. 

6Q 

IO,    II     .  . 

67   68 

10   

^y 

C72 

14  .         .  .277, 

519,   (2)   562,  564 

.t;87 

II 

C77 

16  

14. 

5gg 

15  

606 

1C  .  . 

:  uw 

487 

16  

..67,  60 

16 

68  69 

21-23  . 

177 

18  2C, 

I  C.Q 

c. 

IO-24 

*->? 
619 

7. 

"jy 

C67 

IQ-7.2. 

621 

7,   C.  . 

166 

2O    70 

co6 

7  

462 

2O    2  1 

Q7 

21  

21. 

71 

ICQ 

II  

.  .  467,  528 

26 

68  69 

17    . 

.  .  177 

27.  . 

.68 

14  

611 

28  .;:.. 

•    •                           *59 

14,  15,  17  

.  ,C,7> 

29  

M 

.     ..120,  367,  506    (2) 

86    }QI 

2O  

14    

282 

7  '5  —  •54. 

486 

27.  . 

442 

oo  o-+  

.(2)  108  en 

4  

21,  51 

c 

$7  (2\     7Q7     7Qd 

6  

7  is"' 

C.O7 

7  

..  (2)  181 

1  1 

282    co6  (i\ 

10  

181 

16 

Vn 

n  

480 

18 

j^j 

no    t;oo 

12,  

..(2)  181 

22 

38     CO7 

27    . 

c.8o 

TO 

°«  yt 

C26 

4  

°  J  °y 
76 

467     CI28     C.7.O 

2C,  

181 

34    IS, 

,(2\  CIC 

71  

21 

7O 

.  .6c, 

5,  6,  ii.  .. 

eo6 

7  

.(J2Q 

..66 

8  

22  

38 

3-6 

72 

•22.  . 

,0io8,  no.  146 

68 

73    . 

.  ..2^,  71,  I4Q 

n                 . 

68 

34  

5 

....                 ...221 

638 


INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


xiii.  12  

..c.  621  (2) 

iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
v. 
v. 

V. 
V. 

V, 
V. 
V. 

V. 

v. 

VI. 

vi. 
vi. 
vi. 

EPHESI/ 

i. 
i. 
i. 
i." 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 

IQ 

IIQ 

22  

•  •  •  303,  335,  462,  526 

IIQ  276  "?2Q 

66 

xv  

.  .  .610 

27 

276  ';*'? 

XV.   7... 

462 

4    .... 

.  $1  7^,  86  7^2.  7Q7 

XV.   2O 

611 

4,  ^ 

467 

xv.  21,  seq 

268 

4-6  

;.;.  ;\  \l 

XV.   22 

260  7Qi  600,  610 

8. 

281 

xv.  24   .... 

.  .619 

IQ  . 

^67 

xv.  28 

65 

;87 

xv.  7C-4Q  . 

611 

VL 

.  ^26 

xv.  38 

96 

? 

XV.  44 

609 

I7-K 

221 

XV.   4.C 

292 

14 

221 

xv.  4C-47  .  . 

.  .  344,  -364 

17  

.  .  177,  27^,  280 

xv.  46-40  . 

-244 

17-27 

c8A 

xv.  47  

.  W,  394 

IQ-2I  .  . 

280 

xv.  56.  .. 

268 

24  

276 

II  CORINTHIANS. 
i.  12  

181  (2),  583 

2. 

221 

C..  , 

7O2 

14. 

.    JWi. 

.461 

je 

CCQ 

i.  20  

iNS. 

•3 

52 

ii.  16  

266 

iii.  17 

7O  71 

iii.  18  

.  .  146,  277  ^67 

iv.  2  

..  (2)  181 

.  .117,  ?o6  (2),  qo8 

iv.  6  

C 

.  .IIC.  172.  CO6 

v.  1-4  

7  

4C2,  461,  467 

v.  2,  4  . 

268 

121 

v.  7  . 

621 

IO 

764.  767 

v.  8.::....: 

II  

....  108,  115,  121  506 

v.  10  

14 

4J.2 

V.   II 

(?\  iSt 

17  

6c 

v.  14.  ...  294,  295,  302,  461,  462'  479 

V.   1C             ?r»C  A(\\  Afit  Ann 

18  

IQ 

77 

v.  17  

IQ,  2O.  .  .  . 

JO 

.  CIQ 

v.  19.  . 

21-27  .  . 

•y~y 
.    .364 

V.   21  

462.  463  (A\  C28  C7O 

22  

76^  767  CQO 

vi.  14  

277 

27.  . 

xi.  7  . 

2O2 

I    .  . 

266  276 

xi.  31  

^y-* 

CCQ 

xii.  8  

...           61 

2 

QQ 

xiii.  14  

.68  7i 

3.  . 

...28l.  7QI 

GALATIANS. 
i.  i  

..  63 

268 

C.  . 

.  276,  qo6 

8 

co6  C2Q 

i.  7,  4... 

IO 

cii  ceo  567  c?6 

ii.  15  

281 

17 

4.61 

76l,  C.27,  C7Q 

•o  

14 

4r8 

ii.  17  

1C 

a? 

ii.  20  

69,  367,  t;83 

16 

6t 

ii.  2O,  21  .... 

Q2 

iii.  i  .  .  .  .  

461 

17 

c-z-i 

ni.  2,  7.  . 

.  .292 

5,6""*:. 

C2 

iii.  6  

526 

$>... 

21,  52 

iii.  10   .... 

C2Q 

8 

601; 

gi.  ii  

527 

Q.  IO.  .  . 

604 

Jii   13  

.  .4CO,  462.  467 

12 

.  .-  ^6":,  76*, 

iii.  nc  14.  . 

..46l 

11,  . 

.  .  146,  37n 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


639 


iv.     15,  16... 

367 

I.  THESSALONIANS. 

iv.     18  

276,  277,  280 

i      c.  6 

crq 

iv.     22-24   •  •  • 

276,  562 

ii      10 

iv.     23,  24  . 

.  .  ceo 

iii      IO—  ii 

^8c 

IV        24. 

->JV 
254,  364 

^  6^ 

226 

iv       14. 

,.6n 

IV.       IO 

68 

iv       1  6    17 

6q 

(2)  462 

iv       17 

2cq 

v.     5  

57,  60 

1Vt      */  

V        Q     IO 

.506 

v.     |     

277 

V        21 

1  66   585,  609 

v.     8,  14 

58 

•*  3    

.  .  6q,  167 

II  THESSALONIANS. 

x  »  fa 

v.     25  

462,  591 

i      7—  10 

6lT. 

.  .  col 

i      8   9 

6ic 

C12 

1^2 

vi.      12    .... 

99 

i      12 

C7 

vi.      17 

569 

ii      8 

609 

ii.     11.  . 

(2)   506,  519 

PHILIPPIANS. 

.  .."Uq 

i.     6 

.  .  587,  6o9 

Ul6    17 

j*" 

62 

132 

607,  621 

I  TIMOTHY. 

k      6 

.  .c?,  iql 

l8l,  221 

H      6-8 

59,  74 

92 

ii      6  1  1 

..  n2 

i.     17 

21,  51 

M7 

.53,  3o8 

i.     iq 

181 

ii      8 

461,  463 

31,  619 

619 

ii.     5  

21 

....61 

ii,     6       

442  462,  479 

260 

ii       12 

...  33=5,576 

.    292 

.  262 

•* 

8   ryQ   cio'  <Lto 

181 

iii      12 

c8i'  t;84 

iii      16 

.  .  .qq,  iql 

mi  C 

583 

181 

iii      20 

607,  609,  611 

..cc,  609,  611 

479 

CdLOSSIANS. 

520 

II  TIMOTHY. 

4.6  1     4.6  3 

i.    i..          .... 

583 

1.      14    

C/l  (2\     7C    Q2    l64. 

117,  506 

i.     10  

268,  276 

Cd.    O7     III     l64. 

iv.     i  

60 

C1.  C4,  IO2 

iv.     I,  8  

609 

i        r8 

iv      18  

347,  367,  619 

i.      20  
i.      22  

347,  367,  461,  619 
268 

i.     15  
ii.     13  

181 

57,58»6o,  463 

i-    27  
»•    9  

11        jo      .  .    .  . 

533 

60 
99,  367,  379,  583 

iii.     5»7  

PHILEMON. 

529 

18 

CIO 

ii      13 

266,276 

.  .i6c.  167 

HEBREWS. 

559 

i,  ii  • 

393 

iii.     10  

..   .254,364,367,559 
164 

i.     I  
i.     2  

434 
..-55,  92 

iii.     14  

221 

i.    3  55,  (2)  5 

9,  75,  102,462,463 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTUKE  PASSAGES. 


I 
i 
i 

i 
i 
i 
i 
ii 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 

V. 
V. 
V. 
V, 
V. 
V. 
V. 
VI. 

vi. 
vi. 
vi. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
vii. 
viii. 
viii. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 
ix. 

X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 
X. 

xi. 
ocii. 

4-6  . 

.  .  S4 

xii. 
xiii. 

xiii. 
xiii. 
xiii. 

JAMES. 
i. 
i. 
i. 

ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 

23 

166,  607 

5,6 

85 

83 

76 

(2\  6l 

12 

467 

8  ,   . 

C7.    (2)  6l,  6c.  477 

18         .    .. 

181 

•57 

21 

mo,  c,8i; 

10  

.  .  c.4,  ^7,  ^8,  02 

2-4          .     .  . 

.ICQ 

12 

Q2 

9....  276, 
jO 

295,  461,  462,  479,  619 

re     i  -j  i    A/Q'~> 

13  

108 

11 

462 

272,  282 

14 

389>  392.  393»  46i,  462 
364 

18.. 

.  .ci8,  c67,  c,6q 

14.  ..... 

I4.-IO 

18  .. 

C.4O 

16  

.    7Q? 

21,  2^-2<;. 

..C27 

17 

"3Q7,  462    467 

27 

..C.26 

I         

.  .  462 

2    

1584 

4 

w 

iii. 

I  PETER 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 
i. 

ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
v. 

V. 

II  PETEI 
i. 

i. 
i. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 

I  JOHN. 
i. 
i. 

n.  . 

.  .  2C.4 

I    

"589 

2    

..71,  t;o6 

•2 

•  •  •  •  y^y 

06   104 

12    

y.u>  "rf 

lot).  C.OQ 

14. 

402 

=>  .  .       .... 

.  c86 

1C.  . 

7Q2 

11    ....... 

:  .  .     .  .  70   780 

.  .  .                             462 

12  

60 

2          ... 

7Q2 

16  .     ..    . 

221     222 

4.  c.  . 

IQ.  . 

.    4CI,  462 

c 

86 

2O  

117 

I:: 

462 

2.T..  . 

rbo 

8      .    .. 

7O'>      467 

s     .  : 

COQ 

10  

.  .    462 

IQ.  . 

181 

4,  seq  .  .  , 

<;8? 

21  .... 

461 

c  

07 

2I-2C,  .  . 

.  .  .  .                       192     221 

I7-IQ.  .  . 

.c86 

24  

20.  

1C.  

...       58 

10  

168 

16  ... 

16  

•2Q6     All 

18....  167, 
18-21.. 

392,   450,  461,  462,  (2) 
6O4     60  C 

17  

477 

21  

T'jy 
.  .  706 

19.  . 

q8      166 

25  

20 

18 

26  

22. 

764 

28  

T-J* 

.    .3Q6 

7..  . 
7 

.462    48  c. 

QQ 

"?•  • 

.  .  440 

t. 

j 

yy 

17.  . 

...      .             -452 

14  

181,  452,  462  (2) 

22  

440 

24  

485 

IO 

276'^g 

25  

462 

IQ 

Sg 

26  

430,  462 

xy  
i 

o°9 

480 

28  

.  .  450,  462,  (4)  463 

4 

OQ     I  ?8 

7-9  

462 

yy>  ijfj 

pW- 

IO  

(2)  462 

37 

557 
fino 

12.     

462,  (2)  608,  609 

7    T-J 

£°9 

OT7 

14  

442,  462  (2) 

8    3  

U1J 

18 

15  

67 

19  

487 

IO 

31 

21     ...... 

462 

J7 

97>  6l3 
ft»i 

22...  

iSi 

At 

26  

.        .  .                                   46^ 

I    2 

20.. 

.  480.  qS? 

3  

92 

7  

584 

7.. 

•••  393 

INDEX  OF  SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES. 


641 


i. 

i. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ii. 
ui. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 
iv. 

V. 
V. 
V. 

JUDE. 

REVELA 

i. 

i. 
i. 

8  

.  .  <?87,  <;84 

i. 
ii. 
ii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iii. 
iv. 

V0 
V. 
V. 
V. 
V. 

vi. 
vii. 

vii. 

X. 

17.  18.. 

c6,  65 

8-10  ... 

27C 

II  

271 

i. 

.586 

2^ 

...56 

2 

.442    462    I"1)  47Q.  487 

7 

.  .                     6otj 

c 

r87  ( 

14 

14 

56 

.  .  C-J2 

2O  

47Q 

IO     . 

562 

II 

.  .02  (2),  171,  161 

16 

108  302 

6 

461 

.37 

9.  .  . 

.  .  461  (2) 

2  

.60,  146,  621  (2) 

4  - 

282 

12 

.     .       461,    462 

C.  . 

.  .463 

n.  . 

61 

c,  sea 

583 

.  .166,  «?g8 

14      ... 

:  ::::::  :..;.:::  .y 

14  

£                £ 
4O2,     403 

1  6 

77,  462 

16,  17.  . 

159,     396 

17 

.221 

ev..;.: 

92 

87  

.  221 

XI. 

xiii. 
xiv. 

K.  .  . 

396 

IO 

462     463 

85  

462,  co6 

12 

C32 

ii  

..:56i5 

14 

463 

XIV. 

xix. 

XX. 
XX. 
XX. 

XX. 
XX. 
XX. 

xxi. 

xxi. 
xxi. 
xxi. 
xxi. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 
xxii. 

14  

38c 

16 

37 

6  

33 

17 

c8^ 

4  

..i  66,  1598.  608 

2O    2  1 

3°J 

20! 

6  

271 

II    I'1 

586 

.   6ic 

11    lj>.  . 

16 

°72 

12.  .     .  . 

...     ...613 

20 

*l* 

44    ?7     O4 

17.     . 

.669 

6  

99.  I58t  6°9 

14 

:  ei? 

o7.  6oL 

I  

62: 

4  

.     I^Q 

8 

7  

158 

"71 

15  

509 

22,  23  . 

396 

T10N. 

s    J-  •  • 
4 

39^ 

r 

7  

76 

ii  

.  526,  527,  600,  613,  615 



7 

600 

12  

609 

1  

13  

..'  56 

11 

•  •  •  55>  5°>  °5 
6c 

17  

479 

13  .. 

'  i« 

19  

587 

THE  SERMO2ST  BIBLE. 

EMBRACING  THE  WHOLE  OF  THE  SACRED  SCRIPTURES. 

(Eompletion  of  \\\t  CDib  ^Testament.   In  four  ttoitunes. 

NOW    READY. 

ist  Vol.—  CONTAINING  GENESIS  TO  SAMUEL.      I  sd  Vol.—  CONTAINING  PSALM  7/TH  TO  SOLOMON. 
2d  Vol.—  CONTAINING  KINGS  TO  PSALM  76™.     I  4th  Vol.—  CONTAINING  ISAIAH  TO  MALACHI. 


Note  fUabs  of  tl)e  Njetn  Testament. 


5th  Vol.—  MATTHEW  i  TO  2iST.  |  6th  Vol.—  MATTHEW  22  TO  MARK  i6TH. 

Each  Volume  (complete  in  itself)  contains  upward  of  500  Sermon  Outlines  and 
several  thousand  References,  with  24  Blank  Pages  (in  each  Vol.)  for  Notes.  Bound 
in  half  buckram  cloth.  Price  $1.50  each. 

THIS  SERIES  OF  VOLUMES  will  give  in  convenient  form  the  essence 
of  the  best  homiletic  literature  of  this  generation.  As  yet,  the  preacher 
desirous  of  knowing  the  best  that  has  been  said  on  a  text  has  had  nothing 
to  turn  to  but  a  very  meagre  and  inadequate  Homiletical  Index.  In  this 
he  is  often  referred  to  obsolete  or  second-rate  works,  while  he  misses  ref- 
erences to  the  best  sources.  The  new  SERMON  BIBLE  will  take  account 
of  the  best  and  greatest  preachers,  and  will  be  compiled  from  manuscript 
reports  and  fugitive  periodical  sources  as  well  as  from  books.  Many  of 
the  best  sermons  preached  by  eminent  men  are  never  printed  in  book 
form.  It  will  thus  contain  much  that  will  be  new  to  its  readers. 
UNDER  EVERY  TEXT  WILL  BE  GIVEN:— 

I  .  Outlines  of  important  sermons  by  eminent  preachers  existing  only 
in  manuscript  or  periodicals,  and  thus  inaccessible. 

2.  Less  full  outlines  of  sermons  which  have  appeared  in  volumes 

•which  are  not  well  known  or  easily  obtained. 

3.  Reference  to  or  very  brief  outlines  of  sermons  which  appear  in 

popular  volumes  such  as  are  likely  to  be  in  a  preacher's  library. 

4.  Full  references  to  theological  treatises,  commentaries,  etc.,  where 

any  help  is  given  to  the  elucidation  of  the  text. 

Thus  the  preacher,  having  chosen  his  text,  has  only  to  refer  to  the 
SERMON  BIBLE,  to  find  some  of  the  best  outlines  and  suggestions  on  it 
and  full  references  to  all  the  helps  available. 

The  range  of  books  consulted  will  be  far  wider  than  in  any  Homiletical 
Index  —  we  cannot  say  than  in  any  work  of  the  kind,  because  no  work  of 
the  kind  is  in  existence. 

The  Series  will  be  under  the  general  supervision  of  the  Editor  of  the 
"  Clerical  Library,"  who  will  be  assisted  by  specialists  in  each  depart- 
ment. 

It  will  extend  to  12  vols.,  of  about  500  pages,  with  24  blank  pages  for 
memorandum  notes  at  end  of  each  vol.  Price  $1.50  each,  and  will  be 
published  at  the  rate  of  at  least  two  vols.  a  year. 

Great  care  will  be  taken  to  observe  due  proportion  in  the  volumes  —  the 
space  given  to  each  book  of  the  Bible  depending  on  the  number  of  ser- 
mons that  have  been  preached  from  it. 

As  the  volumes  will  be  INDISPENSABLE  TO  EVERY  PREACHER,  and  as 
they  will  be  in  constant  use,  they  will  be  issued  well  bound,  and  at  an 
exceedingly  moderate  price  when  the  amount  of  matter  is  considered. 

Copies  sent,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price,  by 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON,  5  1  East  1  Oth  Street,  N.Y. 


DR.  STRONG'S  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY. 

NOW    READY. 

The  Second  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged,  of 

SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY, 

A  Compendium  and  Commonplace  Book,  designed 
for  the  Use  of  Theological  Students. 

By    AUGUSTUS    HOPKINS    STRONG,    D;D., 

President  and  Professor  of  Theology  in  the  Rochester  Theological  Seminary. 

In  one  large  Octavo  Volume  of  nearly  800  pages,  strongly  bound  in  Cloth.     Price,  $5» 
Sent  by  mail,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 

Grateful  for  the  favor  with  which  the  first  edition  of  his  Systematic 
Theology  has  been  received,  the  author  has  subjected  it  to  thorough  revision, 
and  now  sends  it  out  with  its  errata  so  far  as  possible  corrected,  with  many 
slight  improvements  of  statement,  and  with  more  than  seven  hundred  new 
references,  quotations,  or  brief  additions  to  the  substance  of  the  zvork. 
Notwithstanding  these  changes,  the  paging  of  the  old  edition,  except  in  the 
Index,  has  been  almost  uniformly  preserved. — EXTRACT  FROM  PREFACE  TO 
NEW  EDITION. 

Additional  Note  of  the  Publishers. 

The  first  edition  of  this  work  of  PRESIDENT  STRONG,  of  one  thousand  copies, 
was  sold  without  discount  at  five  dollars  r?^r  copy,  being  privately  printed  in  1886,  and 
disposed  of  without  going  into  Booksell^"  uands.  It  has  received  universal  commenda- 
tion from  the  most  distinguished  the«^.ogians  of  all  evangelical  denominations,  and  from 
religious  Journals  and  Reviews,  as  uniting  the  merits  of  clearness,  compactness,  compre- 
hensiveness, and  cogency,  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  previous  treatise  of  orthodox 
theology.  Some  of  these  testimonies  are  the  following  :  REV.  PROF.  \V.  G.  T. 
SHEOD  :  "A  manual  superior  to  any  that  I  am  acquainted  with  in  the  English  lan- 
guage." PRESIDENT  ALVAII  HOVEY  :  "There  is  no  Systematic  Theology 
which  I  would  sooner  place  in  the  hands  of  a  pupil,  or  a  son,  than  yours."  REV.  DR. 
A.  .1.  P.  BEHRENDS  :  "One  of  the  very  best  theological  manuals  in  existence." 
PRESIDENT  M.  B.  ANDERSON:  "A  monument  of  industry  and  learning." 
PRESIDENT  G.  D.  B.  PEPPER  :  "  The  author  is  pre-eminently  an  artist  and  an 
architect."  DR.  H.  M.  DEXTER  :  "  One  great  pre-eminence  which  this  manual  has 
over  every  other  which  we  recall  is  the  fullness  and  completeness  of  its  Indexes."  REV. 
PROP.  A.  H.  NEWMAN  :  "The  very  best  work  in  existence  on  the  subject  of  which 
it  treats."  REV.  C.  H.  SPURGEON  :  "  A  great  work— an  invaluable  Cyclopaedia." 
REV.  PROF.  A.  C.  KEXDRICK  :  "A  great  and  invaluable  aid  to  theological 
studies."  REV.  DR.  T.  W.  CHAMBERS  :  "  A  very  important  .jonmoution  to 
American  theological  literature."  REV.  PROF.  M.  B.  RIDDLE  :  "We  eladly 
class  the  new  volume  among  the  great  treatises."  PRESIDENT  FRANCIS  L. 
PATTON  :  "  We  advise  theological  students  to  buy  this  book  and  keep  it  within  easy 
reach  for  reference.  It  isa  marvel  of  compression  and  at  the  same  time  of  clear  statement." 
REV.  PROF.  B.  B.  W  A  RPIELD :  "I  embrace  this  opportunity  of  saying  how  much 
I  admire  and  how  much  I  have  profited  by  your  Systematic  Theology,  which  I  have  read 
with  the  greatest  interest  and  gain."  PRESIDENT  AUGUSTUS  SCHULTZE  : 
"The  most  lucid,  thorough,  and  in  every  way  the  most  satisfactory  work  of  this  kind  that 
we  have  in  our  library."  PROFESSOR  J.  CLARK  MURRAY  :  "The  most 
scholarly  exposition  of  our  orthodox  theology  in  the  light  of  recent  thought  which  I  have 
had  the  good  fortune  to  see."  METHODIST  REVIEW:  "  The  author  has  made 
the  whole  church  universal  his  debtor."  LUTHERAN  QUARTERLY  REVIEW: 
"Theological  science  has  produced  in  this  country  very  few  works  of  the  scope  and  merit 
of  this  solid  octavo."  C.  J.  BALDWIN:  "  It  is  by  far  the  most  exhaustive  and  satis- 
factory manual  that  I  know."  NEW-ENGLANDER  :  "A  model  in  form  and  ~xecu- 
tion."  BIBLIOTHECA  SACRA  :  "One  of  the  most  important  contributio  .  made 
in  recent  years  to  the  subject  of  theology."  ANDOVER  REVIEW  :  "The  reverent 
temper  and  catholic  spirit  which  pervades  this  book  must  command  universal  admiration.1* 

Copies  sent  by  mail,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 
A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON,  New  York. 


DR.  WM.  M.  TAYLOR'S  LATEST  WORK. 

THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  SAVIOUR. 

EXPOUNDED  AND  ILLUSTRATED.  By  WM.  M.  TAYLOR,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
Uniform  with  same  author's  "Limitations  of  Life''  and  "  Contrary 
Winds"  and  other  Sermons.  Crown  8vo,  cloth.  $1.75.  net. 

"  To  Archbishop  Trench,  who  more  than  any  other  English  writer  has  brought 
patristic  lore  to  bear  upon  the  illustration  of  the  parables,  eiery  later  author  must 
express  his  peculiar  obligations;  but  the  recent  works  of  Prof.  Bruce  and  Goebel 
have  broken  new  ground  in  this  department,  and  my  aim  has  b~en  to  turn  their  fruit- 
ful suggestions  to  good  homiletical  account.  The  little  -vols.  ij  Dr.  Dod's—only  the 
first  <f  which  was  in  my  hands  ivhen  thrse  discourses  were  prepared — are  full  of 
richest  nuggets ;  and  the  Expositions  of  William  Arnot  are  characteriz  d  by  the 
masculine  sense,  rich  Christian  experience,  and  striking  ilhistrations  for  which  he 
was  so  remarkable.  But  the  present  work,  while  indebted  in  different  respects  to  all 
these  authors,  will  be  found  to  be  in  others  independent  of  them  all." — From  AUTHOR'S 
PREFACE. 

N.  Y.  Observer  says  :  "  Dr.  Taylor  shows  in  this  work  his  large  acquaintance 
with  this  portion  of  religious  literature.  A  better  book  for  the  study,  the  Sunday 
school,  and  the  Christian  has  not  been  issued  this  season." 

Methodist  Recorder  :  "Dr.  Taylor's  style  is  clear  and  strong,  ana  ne  brings  out 
with  great  distinctness  the  leading  thoughts  contained  in  each  parable.  It  will  be  real 
with  pleasure  and  profit  by  thoughtful  Christians.  The  volume  is  one  of  more  thai i 
ordinary  richness." 

Cincinnati  Herald  and  Presbyter  :  "They  are  rich  in  truth,  simple  and  plain  iii 
style,  and  give  evidence  of  ripe  scholarship.  They  are  suitable  for  all  classes  of  reac)  • 
ers,  and  cannot  be  read  without  profit." 

Lutheran  Quarterly :  "They  are  clear  and  direct  in  style,  abound  inapt  illun 
Vrations,  are  textually  faithful,  and  breathe  a  devout  and  scholarly  spirit." 

Christian  World :  "One  cannot  help  but  be  struck  with  the  fact,  as  he  reads  thes' , 
discourses,  that  the  author  has  brought  to  bear  on  their  exposition  an  acute  and  yo  £ 
wonderfully  practical  mind." 

Christian  Leader :  "Recent  research  has  opened  up  great  wealth  of  fresh  lorg 
bearing  upon  the  suggestions  of  the  parables,  and  these  Dr.  Taylor  has  not  onlj 
mastered,  but  assimilated." 

Congregationalist :  "The  whole  series  is  characterized  in  a  remarkable  degrei 
by  strong  common  sense  and  a  shrewd  insight  into  human  nature  and  needs,  as  well  ai. 
by  the  loyal  purpose  to  lead  men  and  women  to  God." 

NEW  WORK  BY  REV.  W.  M.  TAYLOR,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

JOHN  KNOX. 

With  a  fine  Steel  Portrait.     Engraved  by  HOLL,  from  a  Painting  in  the 

possession  of  Lord  Somerville.  I2mo,  cloth.  $1.25.  net. 
This  work  gives  a  vivid,  comprehensive  and  accurate  account  of  the  life  and  work 
of  the  great  Scottish  Reformer.  It  includes  a  careful  and  well  ordered  summary  of  the 
career  of  Knox  in  England,  as  that  has  been  brought  to  light  by  the  recent  investiga- 
tions of  Lorimer  and  others.  Particular  attention  has  been  given  to  the  course  cj 
events  in  Scotland  during  the  last  thirteen  years  of  the  Reformer's  life,  and  his  inter- 
views with  QUEEN  MARY,  as  well  as  his  work  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  Scottish 
Church,  are  described  with  fullness  of  detail  and  independence  of  judgment.  The  story 
is^admirably  told,  the  interest  being  maintained  from  first  to  last,  so  that  the  boni 
•rill  be  at  once  delightful  to  the  young  and  instructive  to  those  of  maturer  years. 

Copies  sent  by  mail,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 


CHOICE    STANDARD    WORKS. 

NEW  AND  REVISED  EDITION 

OF 

HALLAM'S  COMPLETE  WORKS, 

With  New   Table  of  Contents  and  Indexes. 

IN  SIX  VOLS.,  CROWN,  8VO,  CLOTH. 
PRICE,  $7.50  PER  SET.    (Reduced  from  $17.50.) 

( Bound  in  Half  Calf  extra,  $3  per  vol.) 


THIS  UNABRIDGED  EDITION  OF  HALLAM'S  WORKS  COMPRISES 

The  Constitutional  History  of  England,  2  Vols. 
The  Middle  Ages,  Tie  State  of  Europe  During  me  Middle  Ages,  2  Vols. 
Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  2  Vols. 

REPRINTED  FROM  THE  LAST  LONDON  EDITION,  REVISED 
AND  CORRECTED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


MACAULAY,  in  his  famous  estimate  of  Hallam,  says  :  "  Mr.  Hallam 
is,  on  the  whole,  far  better  qualified  than  any  other  writer  of  our  time 
for  the  office  which  he  has  undertaken.  He  has  great  industry  and  great 
acuteness.  His  knowledge  is  extensive,  various,  and  profound.  His  mind 
is  equally  distinguished  by  the  amplitude  of  its  grasp,  and  by  the  delicacy 
of  its  tact.  His  speculations  have  none  of  that  vagueness  which  is  the 
common  fault  of  political  philosophy.  On  the  contrary,  they  are 
strikingly  practical,  and  teach  us  not  only  the  general  rule,  but  the  mode 
of  applying  it  to  solve  particular  cases.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hallam's 
work  is  eminently  judicial.  Its  whole  spirit  is  that  of  the  Bench,  not 
that  of  the  Bar.  He  sums  up  with  a  calm,  steady  impartiality,  turning 
neither  to  the  right  nor  to  the  left,  glossing  over  nothing,  exaggerating 
nothing,  while  the  advocates  on  both  sides  are  alternately  biting  their  lips 
to  hear  their  conflicting  misstatements  and  sophism  exposed." 


This  "STANDARD  EDITION"  of  HALLAM'S  WORKS, 
in  6  Vols.,  AVERAGES  NEARLY  800  PAGES  IN  IACH 
VOL.,  and  is  sold  at  $7.50  PER  SET  (formerly  published 
in  10  Vols.  at  $17.50.) 

Sent  on  receipt  of  price,  charges  prepaid, 

A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON,  N.Y. 


REV.    DR.   WM.    M.  TAYLOR'S    WORKS. 

Contrary  Winds  and  Other  Sermons. 

Crown  %vo  Volume ,  Cloth.     $1.75  net.     $a  Edition. 

1  "  This  work  touches  on  numerous  phases  of  life  and  thought  and 
experience,  showing  that  the  author  has  lived  through  a  vast  deal  and 
has  been  made  the  richer  and  stronger  by  it.  It  leaves  the  impression 
of  wisdom  that  comes  from  actual  experience,  dealing  with  life  rather 
than  speculations,  and  so  comes  home  to  the  heart  and  conscience.  IT 

SHOWS  A  WIDE   RANGE   OF    READING    AND    CLOSE    GRAPPLE   WITH    THE 

DIFFICULT  PROBLEMS  OF  OUR  TIME.  Such  preaching  is  tonic  and  in- 
vigorating. It  strengthens  the  heart  and  fortifies  the  will  to  overcome 
trials  and  conauer  temptations  and  achieve  victory/' — N.  Y.  Christian 
al  Work. 

The  Congregationalist  says :  "Its  variety  of  theme  and  the  never- 
failing  intellectual  power  which  it  illustrates,  the  author's  reverent  posi- 
tiveness  of  faith,  his  broad  and  intimate  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
and  the  richness  of  his  personal  spiritual  experiences — never  obtruded 
but  always  underlying  his  words — render  it  a  volume  of  rare  and  precious 
value  to  the  Christian  believer,  and  A  CAPITAL  SPECIMEN  OF  MANLY, 
BUSINESS-LIKE  DISCUSSION  TO  ALL  OTHERS  WHO  CARE  TO  READ 
WHAT  A  CHRISTIAN  HAS  TO  SAY  FOR  HIS  RELIGION." 

N.  Y.  Churchman :  "  Sermons  practical  in  their  nature,  full  of 
deep  thought  and  wise  counsel.  They  will  have  as  they  deserve  a  wide 
circulation. 


Now  Ready— 4th  Edition  of 

THE    LIMITATIONS   OF   LIFE 

AND   OTHER    SERMONS. 

By  WM.    M.  TAYLOR,    D.D. 

WITH  A  FINE  PORTRAIT  ON  STEEL  BY  RITCHIE.    CROWN  8vo 
VOL.,  EXTRA  CLOTH,  $1.75.  NET. 

"  In  variety  of  theme,  in  clearness  and  penetration  of  vision,  in 
distinctness  of  aim,  in  intensity  of  purpose,  in  energy  and  well-directed 
effort,  etc.,  this  volume  is  perhaps  without  its  equal  in  the  language." 

—  The  Scotsman. 

Providence  Journal :  "  The  directness,  earnestness,  descriptive  and 
illustrative  power  of  the  preacher,  and  his  rare  gift  for  touching  the  con- 
science and  the  heart,  are  fully  exemplified  in  these  eloquent  discourses." 

N.  Y.  Evangelist:  "They  have  the  noble  simplicity  and  clearness 
of  the  truth  itself,  and  which,  fixing  the  attention  of  the  reader  from  the 
beginning,  holds  it  to  the  end.  It  is  impossible  to  read  them  without 
the  constant  sense  of  the  personality  of  the  author." 


Copies  sent  on  receipt  of  price,  post-paid* 


REV.  DR.  HENRY  B.  SMITH'S  WORKS. 

SYSTEMoFCHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY 

By  HENRY  B.  SMITH,  D.D.,  LL.D.     Edited  by  WM.  S.  KARR,  D.D. 
Octavo  vol.     650  pages.     Cloth.    (4th  Edition.)     $2.00. 


" 


The  importance  of  this  publication  can  hardly  be 
over-estimated.  Dr.  Smith,  while  living,  exerted  an 
influence  on  Christian  thought  second  to  that  of  no 
one  In  this  country.  And  to-day  his  opinions  and  ut- 
terances on  points  of  Christian  doctrine  are  quoted  as 
of  the  highest  authority." 

"  We  hazard  little  in  saying  that  Prof.  Smith's  '  System  of  Christian  Theology  '  will 
take  its  place  at  once  in  the  very  foremost  rank  of  the  great  American  treatises  on 
dogmatics.  It  is  in  a  peculiar  sense  representative  in  its  combination  of  keen  analytical, 
philosophic  power  and  vivid  perception  of  the  imperative  wants  of  the  human  heart. 
.  .  .  The  book,  as  a  whole,  is  a  monument  of  profound  Christian  thought.  No  one 
could  have  composed  it  who  was  not  impressed,  as  Prof.  Smith  was,  with  the  supreme 
dignity  and  value  of  the  science  to  which  the  best  years  of  his  life  were  devoted,  and  at 
the  same  time  with  the  infinite  possibilities  of  that  sphere  of  divine  knowledge  into 
which  this  science  aims  to  penetrate."  —  N.  Y.  Evangelist. 

The  Herald  and  Presbyter  says  :  "There  is  no  part  of  this  work  that  is  not  a  valu- 
able addition  to  the  theological  literature  of  the  subject  which  it  treats.  The  whole 
volume  is  a  product  of  theological  ability  of  the  very  first  order,  and  of  wide  and  thor- 
ough scholarship.  .  .  .  Its  style  is  clear  and  sparkling.  In  those  portions  of  the 
work  in  which  the  theme  is  elaborated,  it  rises  to  heights  of  real  eloquence.  .  .  . 
We  have  been  given  an  elaborate  theological  treatise,  which  must  take  a  place  abreast 
of  the  ablest  treatises  in  divinity  to  be  found  in  our  language." 

INTRODUCTION  TO  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY—  LECTURES  ON 
APOLOGETICS.     By  HENRY  B.  SMITH,  D.D.      Edited  by  WM. 
S.  KARR,  D.D.      2  vols.  in  one.     Price  reduced  to  $1.50. 
44  As  these  two  works  properly  belong  together,  it  has  been   thought 

advisable  to  publish  them  as  one  volume,  giving  the  author's  complete 

survey  of  the  field,  as  well  as  his  earlier  and  later  treatment  of  some  of 

the  subjects." 

"  No  teacher  in  this  country,  and  few  anywhere,  had  a  more  thorough  acquaintance 
with  this  large  and  abstruse  subject,  and  with  its  enormous  literature.  His  severe  and 
carefully  trained  logical  faculty,  his  cool  and  dispassionate  judgment,  his  extensive 
learning,  and  his  nervous  and  transparent  style,  lend  to  this,  as  to  all  his  other  produc- 
tions, a  profound  interest  and  a  peculiar  charm.  It  "will  be  an  invaluable  manual,  not 
only  to  the  prof  essional  student,  but  to  every  thoughtful  reader  -who  seeks  to  justify  the 
"ways  of  God  to  man."  —  N.  Y.  Tribune. 

HENRY  BOYNTON  SMITH—  Hi8  Life  and  Work.  Edited  by  his 
WIFE.  With  a  fine  Portrait  on  steel  by  Ritchie.  Octavo  vol., 
cloth.  $2.50. 

This  Memoir  of  the  lamented  Prof.  Smith  ^  es  a  faithful  picture  of 
his  character  and  public  career.  The  story  is  deeply  interesting,  and 
while  it  fully  justifies  his  reputation  as  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
scholars  and  theologians,  it  also  shows  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  very 
rare  personal  attractions. 

.AT.  Y.  Observer  :  "  Dr.  Smith's  life  was  full  of  incident  and  adventure.  His  education 
was  splendid.  Foreign  travel  in  youth  broadened  his  view,  enlarged  his  acquaintance 
with  universities,  with  men,  books,  and  life.  The  brightest  intellects  discerned  his  great- 
ness. As  a  pnstor,  preacher,  teacher,  lecturer  and  professor,  as  a  reviewer  and  editor, 
he  always  made  the  mark  of  a  first-rate  workman,  doing  everything  well.  The  loving 
hand  of  the  wife  has  fitly  held  out  to  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  bound  up  in  this  bundle 
such  evidence  of  his  greatness  and  worth,  that  the  present  generation  and  posterity  will 
know  something  of  what  the  Church  lost  when  this  light  went  out  before  eventide." 

Copies  sent  on  receipt  of  price.,  post  paid. 
A.  C.  ARMSTRONG  &  SON,  New  York. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 


Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


?8Sep'53CJ? 
or  pi  5  1953  HI 


LD  21-100m-7,'52(A2528sl6)476 


40903 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


